Defence`s Feeds

Paul Schwartz and I have published a new policy memo through PONARS Eurasia. Here’s a preview. Full memo may be found here, and the complete report that it summarizes was also published last week by IFRI.

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To great fanfare, in May 2016, Russia hosted the third ASEAN-Russia Summit at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Commemorating the 20th anniversary of Russia’s acceptance as an ASEAN dialog partner, this summit was intended to give new impetus to longstanding efforts by Russia and Southeast Asia to forge closer economic and security ties. Defying efforts by the West to isolate Russia, leaders from all ten ASEAN member states attended the summit.[1]Despite having recently skipped several high-level ASEAN summits, this time President Putin led the Russian delegation himself. He also met separately with the leaders of all ten ASEAN states. After the summit, Putin proclaimed that the two sides had reached agreement “on building a strategic partnership over the long term.” Demonstrating that this was not just mere rhetoric, the two sides also announced a raft of new measures during the summit, on topics ranging from security relations to closer political and economic ties. However, Russia’s ongoing Sino-centric focus, ASEAN’s limited ability to act collectively, and Moscow’s preference for bilateral relations will continue to predominate in its overall relations with the region.

A Pivot Toward Eastern Relationships?

In the aftermath of renewed conflict with the West over Ukraine, Russia sought to accelerate its much-discussed “turn to the East” in a bid to avoid isolation and to circumvent Western sanctions. This initiative, which was first launched after the 2008 financial crisis, was intended to allow Russia to reduce its dependence on the West, while harnessing the dynamic growth of the Asia-Pacific region as a means for modernizing the Russian Far East and ultimately Russia itself. The first concrete action to this effect was Russia hosting the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Vladivostok in 2012, followed by an acceleration in efforts to increase economic cooperation. While Russia has consistently placed the highest priority on increasing its ties with China, it also sought to diversify its relations with other Asia Pacific countries in order to avoid becoming overly dependent on Beijing. Southeast Asia figured prominently in this effort, as Russia sought to build upon its existing relations with countries in the region, especially Vietnam, Indonesia, and Myanmar, to maintain its strategic independence. In a move reminiscent of its recent policy in the Middle East, it also sought to expand relations with countries long considered U.S. allies such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand.

The pivot to Asia came to include three components:

• a civilizational alliance against Western “universal values”;
• a geopolitical effort to provide a regional alternative to the U.S.-centered alliance system; and
• a geo-economic push to integrate Russia into Asia’s dynamic economy.

Please click here to read the rest of the policy memo

 

A new museum, commemorating war crimes and their victims, has opened in Kabul. The Afghanistan Centre for Memories and Dialogue is dedicated to collecting the stories of survivors and the families of victims of war crimes. Their voices have rarely been heard in recent decades, partly because dealing with the legacy of violations in the conflict – what is known as ‘transitional justice’ – has received only limited government and international support. Transitional justice is again at risk of being marginalised in the current effort to find a peace deal, say AAN’s Ehsan Qaane and Sari Kouvo. Nevertheless, against the odds, there are some efforts, mainly by activists, to promote transitional justice; these efforts could, in an ideal world, be built on. 

This research was supported by the Embassy of Canada in Kabul through its Canada Fund for Local Initiative (CFLI) Programme.

Dr Nik Muhammad Sharif, a survivor of torture, who lost six brothers after the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in the 1978 military coup was one of those speaking at the opening of Kabul’s newest museum. Dr Sharif’s story was riveting. Almost everyone at the inauguration of the Afghanistan Centre for Memories and Dialogue on 14 February 2019 had tears in their eyes. Sharif described his 11 brothers and how they had been enough to form their own football team. They were Kabul champions in 1977. One year later, the PDPA coup took place. In the purges that followed, six of his brothers were killed. Six survived. After the opening ceremony, he described to AAN how he had been forced to witness the torture of one of his brothers, who had been only 17 years old at the time, “This was more painful to me,” he said, “even than my own experiences of torture.” 

The Afghanistan Centre for Memories and Dialogue is the fourth war crimes memorial or museum to be opened in Afghanistan since 2001, but is, in two ways, a first. It is the first to be established by a civil society organisation, the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organisation (AHRDO). (1) It is also the first to emerge through efforts to try to help war crime survivors and the families of victims who did not survive heal from the trauma of their experiences. AHRDO has encouraged survivors and relatives to speak, write and paint about their losses and the pains they have suffered. They then constructed metal or wooden boxes, collected personal objects and deposited these and the stories of the war crimes in the boxes, which were called ‘Memory Boxes’. At the inauguration, AHRDO’s Hussain Saramad, described how this ‘memorialization work’ had, “over the course of eight years, during which hundreds of survivors took part, led to the construction of hundreds of Memory Boxes…” It is these boxes and their contents that are the exhibited of the museum. 

For Hadi Marifat, chairperson of AHRDO, the museum has several aims. At the least, they want to try to ensure “the painful history” is not forgotten. They want also to boost the public and the government’s understanding of the necessity of respecting victims’ memories. One aspect of this, said Marifat, was that the government should not deal with the Taleban – in any future negotiations or talks – behind the back of survivors and victims’ families. (2) In this, he said, the museum was important; in their own small way, they believe it is part of helping find a just and durable peace for Afghanistan. 

Visitors at Kabul’s new war crimes museum. Past peace deals in Afghanistan have always ignored the voices of victims, yet consultations encounter realistic ideas on how to deal with the past (Photo Hadi Morawej 2019)

The museum is one example of how activists are getting on with transitional justice. (For further information about ACDM, see Thomas Ruttig’s reportage in Tageszeitung (Berlin) on 25 February 2019 under the title “Kriegsmuseum in Afghanistan eröffnet: Die Vitrinen von Kabul”, link here. The reportage will be translated into English and republished by AAN.) By ‘transitional justice’, we mean the various mechanisms and processes aimed at getting accountability and justice for war crimes and conflict-related human rights violations, documenting war crimes and survivors’ stories, truth-telling, reparations and the recognition of victims suffering. 

In this dispatch, we look at how, as the various parties to the Afghan conflict slowly nudge their way towards formal peace negotiations (see AAN’s analysis here, here and here), the issue of how to deal with the legacy of past war crimes barely features in the discussions. Marifat and other activists assert that this issue has to be part of any peace settlement. We also look at the few transitional justice initiatives that are emerging and at what they tell us about how transitional justice could feature in a future negotiated settlement with the Taleban.

The absence of transitional justice in previous deals and attempts to effect it, anyway

From the Geneva Accords between President Najibullah’s government and Pakistan (backers of the Sunni factions of the mujahedin) in 1988, which paved the way for the withdrawal of Soviet troops, to the United Nations-sponsored Bonn Agreement that established the post-Taleban Afghan interim authority in 2001 (see here), to the Afghan national unity government peace deal with Hezb-e Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in 2016, transitional justice has been absent. Indeed, the amnesties provided in past peace deals and power-sharing agreements led the RAND Corporation to suggest in a recent draft report about what a possible peace deal with the Taleban could look like to say that a “broad amnesty, consistent with Afghan precedent, balanced with creating a process for promoting reconciliation” is likely to be part of the deal (authors’ emphasis). This is despite, as a footnote to the report noted, that “…broad amnesties do not comport with best international practice.” (For further discussion about the draft report, see here.) (3)

The 2001 Bonn Agreement, not a peace deal but a power-sharing agreement, followed the ‘Afghan precedent’. Many Afghans still remember UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s dictum from the early phases of the Bonn process that one could either have peace or justice, and diplomats’ warnings to ‘not rock the boat’ in which Karzai and the warlords sat in an instable coalition. However, the 2001 Bonn Agreement did mandate the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commissions (AIHRC) to investigate human rights violations, and the Commission used this mandate to start looking at past violations. It consulted Afghans on how they wanted to deal with the legacies of past war crimes, using this to help draft the Action Plan for Peace, Reconciliation and Justice in Afghanistan. The Commission also carried out the most in-depth, countrywide documentation of human rights violations and war crimes during earlier phases of the conflict (1978-2001) ever undertaken. It also investigated ongoing violations. 

However, the Karzai government gave, at best, only lukewarm support to the Commission’s efforts and in 2007 parliament put a complete stop to the government’s reluctant engagement in transitional justice. MPs – many of them suspected of war crimes themselves – passed the National Reconciliation, General Amnesty and National Stability Law (known as the Amnesty Law) and the law was gazetted in 2008. (4). Without government support, the Commission also felt unable to publish its documentation of war crimes 1978-2001, known as the Conflict-Mapping Report. It had hoped to use this report start a nationwide dialogue, which could help Afghans to learn about what had happened to compatriots in different parts of the country and in different eras.The Commission and its chairwoman, Sima Samar, continue to emphasise the importance of a peace process that provides space to victims and a recognition of their experiences. On 5 December 2018, she said that a durable peace would be possible only if it addressed the legacy of the past, “We are not proponents of violations and revenge, but at least the pain of victims should be acknowledged and the perpetrators must apologise for their crimes” (see here for the full report).

After 2001, then, although transitional justice went unmentioned in the Bonn Agreement, activists and advocates have tried – but largely failed – to introduce it into the mainstream of Afghan politics and discourse. Since 2008, as will be seen below, it is only the International Criminal Court (ICC) through its preliminary examination (AAN’s Q&A about the ICC) of possible war crimes since May 2003 (when its jurisdiction began), and some Afghan and international civil society organisations which have continued to engage on transitional justice in Afghanistan (for AAN reporting on these issues, see here).

The demands of international law

International law requires that international crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide – are investigated and perpetrators held to account. International law also includes legal obligations relevant to the right to remedy and the right to truth and a host of guidance and international best practice relevant to victims’ rights (for international instruments relating to the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence see here). 

The prevalence of international norms does not ensure their implementation, however. Raising issues of transitional justice during a peace process is often seen as risk it failing. This may be particularly true in the case of Afghanistan, where previous peace deals have included amnesties. Also, all of the parties to the current conflict may have an interest in not drawing attention to conflict-related violations and the ongoing conflict and level of violence makes it difficult for victims to share their concerns. Nevertheless, comparative lessons suggests that a balance between peace and justice (see here) is necessary. This is also a clear lesson from the Bonn process; choosing peace or rather stability instead of justice failed to ensure sustainable peace in Afghanistan. Analysis based on peace agreements data collected by the Political Settlements Research Program suggests that about half of the post-1990s peace agreements have included some level of amnesty and that amnesty provisions can be conducive to a sustainable peace. However, the devil is always in the detail: who introduces an amnesty, when it is introduced, for what crimes and under what conditions. All of these questions matter. The Political Settlements Research Program has also shown that victims, as well as broader transitional justice considerations, need to be part of peace processes. The voices of victims are relevant to getting peace and making it sustainable. That is, for peace to be sustainable, the need to end violence and get a swift peace deal need to be carefully balanced against the need for accountability, being truthful about the past, and making reparations. Such balancing, as was noted above, has never been done in earlier Afghan peace deals and power-sharing agreements. Rather, the pain of the past has been ignored. 

Steps being taken towards transitional justice 

Even though Afghanistan has been a tough environment for advocates of transitional justice, some steps – albeit few in number – have been taken to try to revive the focus on accountability and, more broadly, transitional justice in Afghanistan. These include (1) a possible investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the inclusion of ICC crimes in the Afghan penal code; (2) the planned establishment of a committee for war victims as part of President Ghani’s Peace Advisory Council; (3) the AIHRC’s preparation for a possible national consultation about how Afghans want to deal with past violations; (4) documentation of human rights violations; and (5) a reinvigoration of civil society engagement in promoting transitional justice. 

(1) Accountability for international crimes with amnesty

Since 2017, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been pondering whether it should open a full investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity occurring on Afghan soil since 2003 (see AAN’s previous reporting here). The ICC prosecutor showed in her application, submitted to the Pre-Trial Chamber in November 2017, that crimes reaching the ICC threshold had been committed and the fact that Afghanistan has a blanket amnesty law was evidence that the Afghan government was unwilling or unable to investigate these crimes. The resounding support by Afghan victims for an ICC investigation, given in an ICC consultation in January 2018, also suggested to the Court that an investigation would be in ‘the interest of justice’, one of the conditions for the Court to act. Since then, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber has been deciding whether or not to authorise an investigation. Its extreme slowness is most likely caused by considerable pressure from the United States not to start an investigation that would involve investigating crimes allegedly committed by the US military and CIA in Afghanistan, and more broadly not to start an investigation just as a peace process may be on its way. The Afghan government has also been consistently trying to convince the Court that it is willing and able to investigate the ICC crimes – despite the Amnesty Law (read more details in AAN’s previous writings here). 

One concrete step taken by the Afghan government in response to the ICC’s preliminary examination has been the criminalisation of the four Rome Statute crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression – in the new Penal Code. The government has also established a department within the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) to investigate these crimes. 

The Rome Statute, applicable to Afghanistan since May 2003, and the Penal Code, in force since February 2018, both oblige the Afghan government to deal the war crimes and crimes against humanity occurring in Afghanistan since their enforcement. At the same time, the Amnesty law  provides immunity to perpetrators. This has put the Afghan government in a legal limbo in terms of holding perpetrators to account. Even so, although the Penal Code has not explicitly made the Amnesty Law obsolete, its article 916 could be understood to have implicitly done so. It says that “[c]riminal provisions of other laws, which are contrary to provisions contained in this law,” shall be abolished. The term ‘other laws’ should logically cover the Amnesty Law, at least until the Afghan Supreme court or other relevant authority advises differently. Noteworthy also is that the Law on Crimes Against Internal and External Security, adopted as early as 1987, has been integrated into the new Penal Code. This law criminalises acts of terror, fighting against the government and attacking public institutions – all crimes which the Taleban have committed. Immunity to the perpetrators of these crimes is explicitly ruled out by the Amnesty Law (article 4). 

Another step taken by the government has been to establish, on 17 February 2018, a special department within the Attorney General’s Office to investigate international crimes (this was proposed by Attorney General Muhammad Farid Hamidi and approved by President Ashraf Ghani – order number 863). The department has 20 staff, all in Kabul. While its establishment was an important first step, the department is not yet fully functioning. Its head, Muhammad Daud Afzali, told AAN, a year on, he still needs to recruit staff, especially in the provinces, ensure they receive training not only on international humanitarian law and international criminal law, but also how to investigate complicated war crimes, safely, in a time of conflict and without jeopardising victims and witnesses. This is especially crucial as no law defines victims and witnesses’ protection mechanism in the country. To be stable and sustainable, the department also needs to be recognised, as are other departments, by an amendment to the Attorney General’s Office Structure, Responsibilities and Jurisdictions Law, where the institution’s responsibilities and authority re defined. 

Afzali told AAN that an amendment to the law concerning the responsibilities of the department was proposed by the Attorney General’s Office and is being reviewed by the Ministry of Justice. The amendment suggested the department should have four responsibilities: 1) documenting, investigating and prosecuting international crimes; 2) cooperating with other states in relation to these three tasks, according to Afghan law; 3) managing the extradition of international crimes-related detainees and prisoners; and 4) performing any other tasks given to it, according to Afghan law. Although the amendment did not propose cooperation with international institutions, such as the International Criminal Court, as a separate task, paragraph four could cover this gap.

To make perpetrators accountable, it is also important that there should be a court with jurisdiction to hear cases filed by this department.(5) This would require an amendment to the Law on the Structure, Responsibilities and Jurisdictions of the Afghan Judiciary, which would need to be done by the Afghan Supreme Court. AAN was not able to find out if such an amendment has been proposed.

(2) Involving victims of war crimes in the peace process

President Ghani’s latest peace proposal, launched at the Geneva Conference on Afghanistan in November 2018, included the establishment of a Peace Advisory Board divided into eight different committees (see AAN’s analysis here). (6) The original plan did not include any specific involvement for Afghan war victims. According to Maina Abbasi, representative of the Transitional Justice Coordination Group (TJCG) (a coalition of different groups) to the Geneva Conference, they requested the National Security Advisor, Hamdullah Muheb, to establish an additional committee representing war victims. He welcomed the request and later, the Victims’ Families’ Representatives Committee was added to the Peace Advisory Board. A source in the National Security Council (who asked not to be named) told AAN in January 2019 that the initial idea was that the new committee should have 50 members, later decreased to 15. 

The inclusion of a committee for war victims in the Peace Advisory Board is the first time war victims have been provided an official platform. (7) However, the committee has yet to be established and AAN has not been able to clarify how and if committee members will be appointed or indeed what their role will be. Ahmad Shah Stanikzai, a member of TJCG, shared his concerns with AAN that, without a clear definition of how a member of the committee will be chosen, it might be misused; the government, for example, might bring in, in his words, “its own people.” He also added that it is not clear “how much the president would value victims’ committee’s recommendations” in the absence of a clearly-defined mandate. It is doubtful as well, he said, if these 15 representatives would be able to represent all victims in Afghanistan’s diverse society and over many years (the Taleban have been involved in the conflict for more than 25 years).

(3) A national consultation on dealing with legacies of the conflict

The AIHRC has started to prepare for a new consultation with Afghans on how they want to deal with the legacies of the conflict. This would be similar to its ‘A Call for Justice’ report published in 2004. In that year, in the course of seven months, the AIHRC interviewed 4,151 Afghans from all 32 provinces, as well as 400 Afghan refugees in Pakistan and 300 others in Iran, to collect their views on dealing with the legacy of the conflict, 1978-2001. The ‘A Call for Justice’ report did inform the drafting of the government’s Action Plan for Peace, Justice and Reconciliation (applicable from 2006 to 2009), and has remained an important advocacy tool for justice. The AIHRC’s Sima Samar, without giving an exact timeframe, told AAN that the Commission plans to carry out this national inquiry this year. The AIHRC does today have a much more developed infrastructure than it did in 2004, with offices in 14 provinces, and more qualified staff. At the same time, security has grown far worse. (8) Insecurity might create barriers not only for victims to share their views freely and without fear, but also for the AIHRC’s staff to travel to those parts of the country controlled or influenced by the Taleban. 

(4) Documentation and truth-seeking

The AIHRC’s national consultation ‘A Call for Justice’ report was supposed to be published together with a documentation of human rights violations and war crimes from the period 1978 to 2001 compiled by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) based on open source material. While the AIHRC released its report, the United Nations hesitated. It first published and then took down what became known as the ‘United Nations Mapping Report’ (a copy of which was cached and can be read here). After this, the OHCHR only shared copies of the report with the president and the AIHRC. 

Everything in the Afghanistan Centre for Memories and Dialogue – both objects and testimony – has been donated by victims of war crimes (Photo Hadi Morawej 2019)

The AIHRC’s in-depth, countrywide documentation of human rights violations and war crimes during earlier phases of the conflict (1978-2001) which resulted in its own Conflict-Mapping Reportwas its contribution to the implementation of the government’s Action Plan for Peace, Justice and Reconciliation. It finalised the report in 2012 but it, also, was never published. Sima Samar said she shared it with President Karzai in 2013, but both he and President Ghani have failed to decide to publish it (although Ghani, before being elected, said he would do so). The only comprehensive documentation of human rights violations and war crimes in the period up to the fall of the Taleban government that has been officially launched is a report by the Afghanistan Justice Project (AJP), a civil society platform. It has remained a valuable resource for activists and researchers. 

As regards the current period of the conflict, from 2001 till today, there is a great deal of ad hoc documentation available, both of human rights violations and war crimes as investigated and reported on by AIHRC, UN, Afghan and international human rights organisations, journalists (for example see the Killid Group’s reportage) and organisations like AAN. However, as of yet, yet there is no comprehensive report covering the conflict from December 2001 till today, and no analysis as to what gaps there are in the existing reporting. (9)

The main reasons why the UN and the AIHRC war crimes reports were not released said the leaders of these organisations was that they feared publication could endanger staff and be politically destabilising. In 2004, and again in 2013, there was both an anxiety that the alleged perpetrators of the crimes would retaliate, and a concern that the reports would increase factionalism. Publishing documentation on human rights violations and war crimes when perpetrators have political and military power, as is the case in Afghanistan, inevitably carries risks. In the years after the adoption of the Bonn Agreement, these risks were augmented by the fact that there was no clarity about the extent to which amnesty could be provided, no common, agreed-upon narrative about the conflict and no substantial efforts towards a peace process. 

There was – and is – no easy way to deal with the security risks relating to documentation exercises in a country like Afghanistan, but what was lacking in the UN and AIHRC documentation exercises was a clear idea about what the reports should be used for. Early and careful consideration about how documentation can be linked to truth-seeking and reconciliation might have eased the difficulties of getting the reports published. Possibly, the documentation exercises could have been supported by an official truth-seeking mechanism that also took into account the historical and social context of the conflict, that acknowledged and sought to support victims and that was a tool for reconciliation. 

‘Justice’ and ‘reconciliation’ are intimately intertwined in Afghanistan. Both demand that steps are taken towards creating a common and broadly-accepted narrative about what has happened during the conflict. Yet today, there is no such narrative, and the conflict since 2001 has only further fuelled factional narratives of the war, its reasons and its consequences. It is noticeable, for example, that the Afghanistan conflict is not taught in schools. This was a deliberate move. In 2002, when efforts to reform Afghanistan’s school curriculum began, the government decided that this history should not be added to school textbooks in any detail. The reason given by former ministry of education, Faruq Wardak, was that the school curricula needed to be “depoliticized and de-ethnicized” and this could not be done if Afghanistan’s conflict history was included (more details provided by this AAN’s report).

These days, some international institutions like UNAMA are also deliberating how to balance peace, human rights and justice. Richard Bennett, head of UNAMA Human Rights, told AAN that “human rights issues should be at the centre of the peace process.” He also noted that “many Afghans have expressed concern that human rights protections might be compromised in any agreement, or that recent achievements may be jeopardised.” This is particularly in regards to the protection of women’s rights, freedom of expression and freedom of the media. UNAMA is aware of the importance of including many voices in a broader process of deliberating the country’s future, he said, although there are many different models as to how this might be done. The UN hopes to offer relevant experience from other countries to the discussions in Afghanistan. 

(5) Memorialisation and Civil Society Initiatives

While the adoption of the Amnesty Law in 2008 put a lid on official engagement in transitional justice, including with regards to the publication of the AIHRC Conflict-Mapping Report, Afghan civil society organisations have continued to carefully engage on documenting war crimes, collecting war victims’ stories, advocating for a just peace and cooperating with the International Criminal Court. When the ICC was collecting the views and concerns of the Afghan war victims in December 2017 and January 2018, these civil society organisations and victims’ groups played an important role helping get the views of more than 6,500 victims on a possible investigation by the ICC in Afghanistan submitted to the Court ) (see more about representation phase in AAN’s previous dispatch here). (10) 

The Afghanistan Centre for Memories and Dialogue is one example of memorialisation. Setting up the museum is not a one-off event, but part of ongoing work. Hadi Marifat, the chairperson of AHRDO, told AAN they would be inviting more victims to publically share their stories. These would be followed by an experts’ roundtable discussion aimed not only at acknowledging of victims’ pain, but also discussing the root causes of conflicts and figuring out solutions for achieving a sustainable peace. 

Another example of memorialisation allied to activism – this time following the publication by the Dutch government of a list of 5,000 people who disappeared in the early years of the PDPA government – families of the disappeared set up a network, the Afghanistan Victims’ Families Association. Every year, on 10 December – International Human Rights Day and Afghanistan’s National Victims Day – members of the association visit the ‘Polygon’, an area close to the Pul-e Charkhi jail to the east of Kabul, where many of disappeared were buried in mass graves. Member Tawab Fayazi said they also have political demands, the main one being that no PDPA member should work in today’s Afghan government.

Peace with Justice?

Looking at the efforts to promote transitional justice in Afghanistan over the past 17 years, it is clear that accountability, in particular, has been almost entirely lacking. Even simply talking about the violations that Afghans have suffered has been difficult and risky. The absence of transitional justice has been evident from the adoption of the Bonn agreement and the adoption of the Amnesty Law to the peace deal with Hezb-e Islami. It has also been noticeable in efforts to ‘reconcile’ Taleban, such as the Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Programme (APRP).  Initiated in 2010, the APRP aimed at reintegrating insurgences and addressing local grievances. It automatically amnestied those coming over to the government side. The Afghan government has also lobbied against an ICC investigation and tried to do the minimum to convince the Court it is not needed, while remarks by US President Donald Trump have threatened the Court if it seeks to investigate US citizens. The main government vehicle adopted for transitional justice after the Bonn Agreement, the Afghan Transitional Justice Action Plan (2006-09), was never fully implemented; there was limited political will and to do so. Short-term stability has repeatedly trumped justice in Afghanistan, and it has trumped engaging with ordinary Afghans suffering violations during the conflict. (For further discussion on this, see for example here and here.)

However, there is an appetite for justice in Afghanistan. Broad consultations asking Afghans if and how they want to deal with past war crimes have been carried out by: the AIHRC, published in its 2004 “A Call for Justice” paper; the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, published in reports from five provinces, Bamyan, Baghlan, Nangarhar, Kabul and Uruzgan; and by the ICC. The most recent consultation, by the ICC, received submissions on behalf of 6,500 Afghans identifying as victims of war crimes. The overwhelming majority said they wanted the Court to investigate war crimes committed in Afghanistan. All these consultations, as well as investigations by AAN over the years, have shown that Afghans are realistic about what justice is available for them. They do want to know what has happened to disappeared family members, they want recognition for the wrongdoings they have suffered and they want a future for family members – especially children – disabled in the conflict. 

So far, in official or leaked reports of the current discussions between American and Taleban representatives, nothing has suggested that justice for victims of the 2001-19 phase of the conflict is even being raised. It might be different if direct negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taleban begin, although, going on past experiences, one would have to expect the silence on this topic to continue. Even so, as they have proved with their activism over many difficult years, civil society and victims’ groups will continue to push for justice to be a fundamental component in any peace negotiation.

Edited by Kate Clark

(1) The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) established a war museum in Herat (inaugurated in June 2010, more details here) and another in Badakhshan (inaugurated in April 2010, more details here). Ismail Khan, a mujahedin leader, also established a museum, commemorating the mujahedin’s fight against the Soviet Union, in Herat (its building was fully constructed in 2007, see more details here).

(2) At the moment, the Taleban are only talking to the United States, but it and the Kabul government want the insurgents to deal directly with the Afghan government.

(3) The RAND report, “Agreement on a Comprehensive Settlement of the Conflict in Afghanistan”, has not been published, but parts of the text were quoted by and discussed in the media (see AAN reporting for more detail). The New York Times reported that Laurel Miller, who was the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan until June 2017, had authored it. Reuters quoted a tweet from the US embassy in Kabul saying Rand’s work was independent of the US government and did not represent US policy.

(4) President Karzai neither signed nor rejected the parliament’s decision. Based on article 94 of the constitution, if the president does not ratify a legislative decision of the Afghan parliament in 15 days after it was submitted to him, the decision would come in force.

(5) Before the entry into force of the Amnesty Law, a few Afghan war crimes trials had been conducted in Afghanistan. The cases show that individuals with no political protection, such as Asadullah Sarwari, a PDPA official, and Abdullah Shah, a mujahedin military commander from Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf’s Ittihad-e Islami faction, who was sentenced and executed in 2004, can be prosecuted. AAN’s close analysis of the court proceedings against Asadullah Sarwari showed that the Afghan justice system can deliver war crimes trials, although maybe not in a proper way according to international ‘just trial’ standards. The Amnesty Law has also left opportunities open for haq ul-abd rights, ie for an individual, although not thee government to file their cases in front of a court. This right, however, has been difficult and dangerous for victims in practice without government support. No such case has been filed since the law came into force, in 2008. 

(6) These were the eight committees in the initial peace proposal of President Ghani: Political Parties’ Representatives Committee, Religious Community’s Representatives Committee, Women’s Representatives Committee, Tribal Elders and Representatives Committee, Cultural and Civil Society Representatives Committee, Private Sector’s Representatives Committee, Afghan Refugees’ Representatives Committee as well as Youths’ Representatives Committee.

(7) The National Department of Martyrs’ Family Members and Disabled People (separated from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in April 2018) has some responsibilities vis-à-vis victims. It registers victims and pays them or their relatives a small monthly amount of money. 

(8) Based on the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, (SIGAR’s) report, published in October 2018, the Afghan government had control or influence over 55.5 per cent of districts (see the report here).

(9) AAN has documented and analysed efforts to address legacies of past violations in Afghanistan in various reports and dispatches (eg, see here about torture, here about civilian casualties and here on the legacy of war).

Our reporting has included analysis about:

How justice and peace has been balanced (or not) in previous power-sharing and peace deals and especially in the first decade after the US-led intervention into Afghanistan (see AAN’s report about transitional justice and peace here).

The practical challenges of Afghan exercises to document war crimes and human rights violations from the early phases of the Afghan conflict and the successful efforts to bury this documentation;

The lengthy and often Kafkaesque legal proceedings against a handful of Afghan war criminals and the politics that led to the adoption of the Afghan Amnesty Law in 2007-08 (see here).

The equally lengthy and occasionally Kafkaesque efforts around the ICC’s engagement in Afghanistan and the US and Afghan governments efforts to put a lid on this engagement (AAN’s reporting about the ICC and Afghanistan here).

AAN has also regularly reported on the war crimes and gross human rights violations occurring in the current phase of the Afghan conflict and the efforts by individuals, families and communities to seek justice – or at least recognition – for the losses suffered (eg. here).

We have also reported on the importance of some of the public displays of truth-telling or recognition of victims’ suffering has had, including, for example, the release of the death lists of 5,000 people, forcibly disappeared by the PDPA (here and here).

Much of this reporting has been collected in AAN’s dossiers on ‘The PDPA and Soviet Invention’ (see here) and ‘Afghanistan’s War Crimes Amnesty and the International Criminal Court’ (see here). This dossier, from October 2017, has now been updated. 

(10) The victims’ representation might help the judges of the ICC to have a clearer understanding of the Afghanistan situation and the victims’ demands for justice and accountability for war crimes. If the judges authorise a full investigation, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC would investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by the Taleban as well as by Afghan and US security forces – these all appeared in the Prosecutor’s application to the judges. Based on the capacity of the ICC and its mandate, the prosecutor may make cases against a few responsible people from these three parties to the conflict. 

Over 150 experts from 27 European countries and more than 20 different institutions and organisations participate this Tuesday and Wednesday (26/27 February) in Nicosia in the 3rd Conference related to the second phase of the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS II). The Consultation Forum provides a unique platform that can assist EU Member States’ Ministries of Defence in addressing defence-related challenges in energy management, energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy as well as in the protection of defence energy-related critical infrastructures.

Managed by the European Defence Agency (EDA), the Consultation Forum is a European Commission initiative (DG ENER) receiving funding under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 R&I programme. EDA and the European Commission will continue to work hand in hand to deliver the last steps of the Consultation Forum.
Today’s conference was opened by Mr Savvas Angelides, the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Cyprus. 

In his speech, Jorge Domecq, the EDA Chief Executive, highlighted that “the extensive participation makes the Nicosia Conference the biggest one since 2015 when the project was initiated.” This, he said, reflects the continuous interest of the Ministries of Defence to apply sustainable energy models in the defence sector and to benefit from the transition to an Energy Union. “The Consultation Forum is a role model of how EDA performs simultaneously its triple mission of being the major intergovernmental prioritisation instrument at EU level in support of capability development, the preferred cooperation forum and management support structure as well as the interface with the Commission and other Agencies in accordance the Long-Term Review conclusions and recommendations endorsed by Ministers of Defence”, Mr Domecq stated. He also informed the participants that he agreed with Mr Dominique Ristori, European Commission Director-General for Energy, on the possible continuation of the Consultation Forum through a third phase with a higher budget and a longer duration.

Klaus-Dieter Borchardt, the Deputy Director-General of DG ENER, recalled the three key pieces of legislation in the Clean Energy for All Europeans package that have been recently approved: the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive, the revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EU) and the Energy Performance of Building Directive.

The Nicosia Conference focusses on the development of guidelines for improving overall energy management and energy efficiency of military building stock and fixed infrastructure. It also addresses energy considerations by reviewing renewable energy sources and their use in defence infrastructure and developing guidelines on the protection of defence-related critical energy infrastructure against hybrid threats. The Conference will last two days and address several topics ranging from the impact of the energy-related directives on the defence and security sector to the elaboration of defence energy-related project ideas.
 

Next Conference

The last of the three steps Conferences of the Consultation Forum will be hosted under the auspices of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, by the Romanian Ministry of National Defence, and will take place in Bucharest on 12 and 13 June 2019.
 

About the CF SEDSS II

The Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS) is a European Commission initiative managed by the EDA. It aims at bringing together experts from the defence and energy sectors to share information and best practices on improving energy management, energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy as well increasing the protection and resilience of defence energy-related critical infrastructures. On 20 October 2017, the second phase of the Consultation Forum (CF SEDSS II) was launched. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and the agreement is between the EASME executive agency and the EDA. The contract was signed on 16 October 2017 for 22 months, expiring on August 2019. 

Based on the foundations laid during the first phase of the Consultation Forum (2015-2017), the second phase has been further expanded to cover the following interrelated subjects through three main working groups (including sub-working groups): WG 1: Energy Management including Energy Efficiency (Sub-WG1: Energy Management and Sub-WG2: Energy Efficiency; WG 2: Renewable Energy Sources and Technologies; WG 3: Protection of Critical Energy Infrastructure and one cross-cutting theme: Finance.
 

More information:

• Full text of EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq speech at Nicosia conference
• About CF SEDSS II
• European Funding Gateway for Energy in Defence at www.eda.europa.eu/eufunding/energy
• Further progress in sustainable energy for defence sector 

Dasht-e Archi, a district in the northeastern corner of Kunduz province is almost entirely controlled by the Taleban. They have established shadow sub-national governance structures in the district, while most local government officials are absent and work remotely from the provincial capital. Although the Taleban do not provide any services themselves, they have co-opted government and non-governmental organisation (NGOs) services in the district. AAN researcher Obaid Ali (with input from Thomas Ruttig and Jelena Bjelica) offers an in-depth account and analysis of how the local Taleban supervise basic service delivery, such as education and health in Dasht-e Archi. He explores how the two parallel forms of government operate in the district and how this affects the lives of ordinary people.

Service delivery in insurgent-affected areas is a joint research project by the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Our research methodology and literature review, can be read here and the first case study in the series, on Obeh district in Herat province, can be read here.

Dasht-e Archi district: the context

• District centre lies approximately 42km to the northeast of Kunduz city, linked by a non-asphalted road;
• Population assessed to be between 92,576 and 190,000 people, based on various available sets of data; the majority are Pashtun, followed by Uzbeks;
• Since 2013 there has been frequent fighting between the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). and the Taleban, including within the district centre; Jundullah, a group allied with the Taleban, is also present;
• Today the district is almost 80 per cent controlled by the Taleban; the district centre was temporarily taken by the Taleban in June and again in September 2015; in September 2018, the Taleban carried out another large-scale assault on the district centre, but were defeated by the ANSF.

Dasht-e Archi: service delivery 

• Education: of the 58 schools in the district, 27 have buildings, while 29 are open-air. One girls high school operates in the government-controlled area and one in the Taleban-controlled area. Most of the district schools are monitored by the Taleban;
• Health: There are ten health facilities in Dasht-e Archi, including a 20-bed health centre in the government-controlled district centre. Most of the others are located in Taleban-controlled areas. Therefore, they have the potential to influence them. However, as Taleban fighters and their families get treatment there, they largely refrain from interfering in the staff’s day-to-day work. The medical staff’s salaries and supplies for all facilities – in both the government and Taleban-controlled areas – are provided by the Ministry of Public Health through a national NGO;
• Electricity, media and telecommunications: there is no government-run provision of electricity and households mainly use solar panels; there is no mobile phone coverage at night; electronic media operate across the district, but is used by only the limited number of people with access to electricity and other devices (TVs, mobile phones)
• Other services: the government’s administrative system is paralysed; it operates mostly from Kunduz provincial centre; there are no development projects, the Taleban collect taxes and their primary court is open. 

Introducing Dasht-e Archi district

The district’s name refers to its pre-1930s, pre-irrigation geography: ‘dasht’ means desert, and ‘archi’ – originally ‘achi’ (آچی) – means ‘sour’, ie undrinkable, in Turkic. At that time, the district was mainly flat wasteland, with water only fit for livestock. It was mainly used as a summer pasture by Pashtun nomads. (The 1914 British Gazetteer of Afghanistan cites “scanty and brackish” water from springs and a small stream, also called ‘Archi’.) 

These nomads came from southern Kandahar and Helmand, as well as from eastern Kunar and Nangrahar provinces. There are a number of villages named after those tribes. There are, for instance the villages of Shinwari,Mangal, and  Kandahari (which is tribally unspecific, indicating the nomads might have originated from various southern and eastern tribes). The original population were Uzbeks who only settled in the far northern and northeastern parts of what today is Dasht-e Archi district, near the Amu Darya river. They are still in those areas today. At this time, the district was part of the northeastern province of Qataghan (1).

In the early 1930s, King Muhammad Nader Shah (ruled 1929-33) appointed Wazir Muhammad Gul Mohmand, a famous Pashtun author and poet, as tanzimayi rais, a kind of super-governor for the whole of northern Afghanistan. (2). Mohmand recognised Dasht-e Archi’s agricultural potential, if properly developed, and encouraged Pashtun nomads to settle there. He provided them with land deeds and constructed a large irrigation canal that started from the Kokcha River (situated in today’s Takhar province and a tributary to the upper section of the Amu Darya). This was part of a larger, provincial development plan that also involved the production and processing of cotton as a cash crop. A cotton textile mill was established in the provincial capital, Kunduz city, by the Spinzar (White Gold) joint stock company and was a major part of the economic development policies of both pre- and post-World War II Afghan governments. Over time, this visionary investment and major water-supply infrastructure development in the 1930s transformed the once-desert land of Dasht-e Archi into a fertile plain. Today the district produces a variety of fruits and vegetables.   

Dasht-e Archi is the most northeastern district of Kunduz province. It borders the province’s Imam Saheb to the west, Kunduz’s central district to the west (the Ab Dan desert lies between them) and Khanabad to the south. To the east and southeast is Takhar province and the districts of Khwaja Ghar and Bangi. Dasht-e Archi’s northern border is formed by the Amu Darya. Across the river lies Tajikistan.

Dasht-e Archi has three main roads out of the district, one, 25 kilometre-long, connecting to Imam Saheb, another, 23 kilometre-long, to Khwaja Ghar in Takhar province (neither are asphalted) and a third, to Kunduz city via the river port of Sher Khan Bandar. It is 42 kilometres long and asphalted only on the stretch between Sher Khan Bandar and the provincial capital.

There is no solid population data available for Dasht-e Archi. According to an Independent Directorate of Local Government (IDLG) profile of Dasht-e Archi in 2017, the district had an estimated population of 190,000 people (110,000 male and 80,000 female). The Central Statistic Office’s (CSO) estimate for 2018 puts the population at less than half of the IDLG’s figure, at 92,576 people (46,994 male and 45,582 female) (see here p25). Based on the CSO figure, Dasht-e Archi district comprises 8.4 per cent of the total population of Kunduz province, making it the third most-populated district (after Imam Saheb and Khanabad).  

Dasht-e Archi’s main ethnic groups are Pashtuns, followed by Uzbeks. The IDLG profile states that Pashtuns constitute 50 per cent of the population, with Uzbeks at 30 per cent, Tajiks at 15 per cent, Turkmen at five per cent, Arabs at three per cent and Gujar two per cent. The population is distributed between about 160 villages. 

Conflict and security

Dasht-e Archi has a long history of conflict and instability. In the 1980s, it was one of the mujahedin’s strongholds in Kunduz province. Commanders from different jihadi tanzims (factions) were involved in the fight against the Soviet occupation, but the district was largely under the influence of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami (HIG). Indeed, Hekmatyar was born in neighbouring Imam Saheb district. 

In the 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal, Dasht-e Archi suffered from infighting among the jihadi commanders, like other parts of the country. In 1997, Kunduz became a stronghold for the Taleban’s Emirate in the north and Dasht-e Archi divided along ethnic lines. Most of the Pashtuns and Hezb fighters allied with the Taleban, while most Uzbeks fought against them. Mullah Dadullah-ye Lang (Dadullah, the Lame), a Pashtun from Uruzgan, was appointed Taleban commander in charge of Kunduz, and remained a powerful Taleban commander in the northeast until the Taleban’s Emirate collapsed in 2001 (after which he led calls for a new ‘jihad’ – see AAN reporting here) and remained an influential commander until his death in 2007). 

In 2001, after the United States launched its bombing campaign against the Taleban, Dasht-e Archi was the first district of Kunduz to be captured by the so-called Northern Alliance, the anti-Taleban coalition (details here). The late Sheikh Sadruddin Sahdi, an Uzbek from Dasht-e Archi who joined the anti-Taleban Jamiat-e Islami as a commander in the late 1990s, overran the district. He then served as district governor for 12 years before being assassinated in August 2013. He was succeeded by his son, Nasruddin, who has now held the post for over five years. 

Until 2009, the district remained relatively peaceful, but by mid-2009 a new generation of Taleban who had studied in Pakistani madrassas had returned. They started to recruit fighters from the Pashtun community. The spread of their influence, however, was stopped in late 2010 by night raids and the targeted killings of Taleban commanders by US forces. Most of the surviving senior commanders left for Pakistan to avoid being killed, but some low-ranking Taleban commanders, however, remained in Dasht-e Archi and largely stuck to hit-and-run attacks against security forces and local governmental officials.   

After the late Mullah Salaam Baryal, a Kandahari-origin Pashtun from Dasht-e Archi, was appointed Taleban shadow governor for Kunduz in 2013, Dasht-e Archi once again became one of the Taleban’s major strongholds in the province. This happened between late 2014 and mid-2015. Before his appointment as shadow governor, Baryal had reportedly fought as the commander of a group (leading 15 to 20 fighters) during the pre-2001 Taleban rule of Kunduz and remained loyal to the Taleban after their defeat. 

Baryal moved the insurgents’ main base from Chahrdara district in the southwest of Kunduz to Dasht-e Archi, which is his home district, and made it the movement’s command centre for the province. Dasht-e Archi is in a better location, militarily, than Chahrdara district and this facilitated his operations, not only in Kunduz, but also in Takhar and Baghlan provinces, to the east and south. Under Salaam, the insurgency in the province developed a cohesive structure and better chain of command. Mullah Salaam’s strong links with Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur, predecessor of the current Taleban leader (Mansur was killed in 2016, read AAN’s analysis here), allowed him to mobilise significant support from the Taleban’s Leadership Council. 

By 2014, Taleban fighters under Salaam’s command overran several strategic areas around Kunduz city and established a strong presence there (read AAN’s previous analysis here). Salaam invested significantly in gaining the support not only of the local Pashtun majority, but also of Uzbek communities by giving them Taleban district governorships and other positions. Salaam was also the mastermind and commander of the temporary capture of Kunduz city by the Taleban in 2015, and again in 2016 (read AAN previous analysis here). Therefore, he was considered one of the most trustworthy Taleban commanders in the northeast.  

After Mullah Salaam’s death in February 2017 (he was killed in a US drone strike in February 2017), Mawlawi Rahmatullah (also known as Mawlawi Muhammad) took the leadership of Kunduz’s Taleban. He is a Pashtun from the Safi sub-tribe of Chahrdara district and was one of Mullah Salaam’s close aides. However, he faced serious problems establishing his lead over the province’s insurgency, as the Kandahari Pashtuns in Dasht-e Archi were pushing for the appointment of a commander from their district and tribe. Eventually, the Taleban Leadership Council confirmed the appointment of Mawlawi Rahmatullah. This, however, did not quell the disgruntlement of the Dasht-e Archi Taleban. (There is no single leader among them and their strength lies in the unity of local elders and mid-level commanders.) Rahmatullah, therefore, remains a relatively weak shadow Taleban governor and his ability to orchestrate large-scale offensives against government forces in the provinces falls far behind his predecessor.

However, Dasht-e Archi continues to play a key role in the current militancy in northeast Afghanistan, as it geographically links the Taleban’s fronts in Takhar province to the east with those in Khanabad and Imam Saheb districts of Kunduz province to the south and west. This is part of a larger corridor through which the Taleban arrange logistical support and reinforcements from neighbouring districts and the neighbouring provinces of Baghlan and Takhar when needed for larger-scale operations. The district, which is also on the way to Badakhshan province, enables safe passage west for fighters via Takhar. From Badakhshan, they can cross Nuristan province to Laghman, Kunar and Nangrahar provinces in the east of Afghanistan, on their way to their major supply and retreat base, Pakistan. 

Today, the Taleban control around 80 per cent of the district’s territory. Most of the interviewees for this research told AAN that the government controls only the district centre and around 20 of the 160 villages in the district, covering about 15 to 20 per cent of the district’s total population. (These 22 villages, including the district centre, have higher populations than the villages further out in the district, which are under the Taleban’s control.) The estimate of District Governor Nasruddin Sahdi lies at the lower end; he told AAN that only about 15 per cent of the population live under government rule. 

According to Sahdi, the Taleban have brought under their control villages in the northern, eastern and western parts of the district, including the Uzbek villages in the northeast. Meanwhile, the government remains under virtual Taleban siege in the district centre. The frontlines are only a maximum of three kilometres away from the district governor’s office in all directions. To the north, Afghan National Army (ANA), commando special forces and ANA strike force units are stationed in a base in Wakil Sayed Akbar village. These units are well-trained and equipped with modern weapons to support the ANA. They take part in night raids, the targeted killing of Taleban leaders and special offensives against the Taleban. However, they are unable to widen the government’s reach in the district. To the east, west and south, Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan Local Police units are deployed in checkposts in Bazar-e Sheikhabad, Arbab Sayed Ahmad and Tajik Qeshlaq villages.The remaining parts of the district are controlled by the Taleban.

Most of the Taleban fighters in Dasht-e Archi are locals. A small number of outsiders from neighbouring Takhar operate alongside them. They are called in when there is a need for reinforcements during larger operations, after which they return to their original posts. 

Apart from the local Taleban, there is another active group of insurgents in the district, Jabha-ye Qariha (the front of the qaris, those who have memorised and can recite the Quran by heart). It is the military wing of Jundullah (Army of God), an independent group, although allied with the Taleban. Jundullah follows its own radical ideology, largely ignoring the local culture, in contrast to the Taleban permission and respect for local elders and their system of traditional mediation, carried out on a number of issues (read AAN’s previous analysis here). Initially, this front was established by Qari Aminullah Tayeb, an Uzbek from Rustaq district in Takhar province in 2013. Most of its fighters are from non-Pashtun communities such as the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Arabs. It consists of 100 to 120 religiously educated, young, radical fighters. 

Jabha-ye Qariha is based in Shahrwan, an area about 15 kilometres northwest of Dasht-e Archi’s district centre. Late Taleban shadow governor Salaam was able to ensure their alliance with the Taleban and prevented them joining the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, whose remnants are now mostly allied with the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). Jundullah currently fights under the local Pashtun Taleban’s command in the northeast of the district and follows the shadow Taleban governor’s instructions. After Aminullah Tayeb’s appointment as the shadow Taleban governor for Takhar in 2015, the front’s leadership was taken over by Mullah Qader, an Uzbek from Khwaja Ghar district in Takhar province. The Taleban and the local population respect the group because all its members are religiously well-educated. This gives the front credibility when it comes to religious values and their interpretation. 

Jabha-ye Qariha is playing a significant role when it comes to youth radicalisation. The front encourages and mobilises madrassa students to fight against government forces in Dasht-e Archi in its ranks and provides recruits with military training in its Shahrwan stronghold. Apart from Dasht-e Archi, Jabha-ye Qariha also operates in some of Takhar’s northern districts that border Dasht-e Archi, such as Khwaja Ghar and Dasht-e Qala.  

In terms of numbers, the IDLG in 2017 estimated a total of 2,000 insurgents in the district. This includes 1,500 local Taleban and 300 non-local Taleban. The IDLG district profile does not specifically mention Jabha-ye Qariha or Jundullah but lists 200 “Central Asian” fighters. None of AAN’s local interlocutors could confirm the presence of foreign fighters in Dasht-e Archi today. (3) Local sources close to the Taleban told AAN that the total number of insurgents in Dasht-e Archi was only around 800 to 1,000 fighters. A member of the development council also thought their number was less than 1,000. It seems the IDLG might overestimated the number of insurgents operate in the district.   

Government provision of services

The government’s presence in Dasht-e Archi is limited to the district centre and nearby villages. Most respondents said that, apart from the district governor, the police chief and agriculture department staff, all other officials, including the district attorney general and the heads of both the health and education departments are based in Kunduz provincial centre and only rarely visit the district. This started when, in 2015, the district fell to the Taleban. After this, local government officials remained in Kunduz city for almost four months until the district centre was retaken by government forces (read media article here). Since then, sporadic visits have resumed. However, many regular services for the people have never resumed. For instance, one respondent said that if a person needs a tazkera (national identity card), he or she has to go to the provincial centre. Another respondent said that, to register a case with the district attorney general, one also has to go to Kunduz city and find the prosecutors for the district. He added there was no permanent office for the district prosecutors in Kunduz city and most of the time they were unavailable. 

The agriculture department’s staff remain in the district. The Taleban have taken a ‘soft’ approach towards them because of the assistance they provide to farmers, who, for the most part, live in Taleban-controlled areas and are often dependent on outside subsidies.

Many of the respondents said that local government appointments were largely based on nepotism and family connections. In a district with a majority of Pashtuns, local government posts are largely run by Jamiat-e Islami affiliated Uzbeks. Only the head of the education department is a Pashtun. There are two main reasons preventing Pashtuns from serving as local government officials in the district. First, the appointment of local officials has to be endorsed by Nasruddin Sahdi, the district governor, who is an Jamiati Uzbek with an anti-Taleban background. He favours people loyal to him and his party. The other reason is that the Taleban issue threaten local Pashtuns, warning them not to take government jobs. They focus their threats against Pashtuns because they form the majority ethnic group in the district. As for Uzbeks, if they work for the government, they are usually living inside the district centre and are loyal to the district governor. Most of the respondents said that, apart from the education, health and agriculture sectors, the Taleban have warned people not to serve as government employees. If they ignore these warnings, they will take their agricultural land and private homes in Taleban-held areas.

According to the IDLG profile of Dasht-e Archi district, as well as AAN’s interview with the district governor, the Afghan government security forces number about 655 officers. 

• Most belong to the Afghan National Army (ANA) – numbering 360 officers –based three kilometres north of the district governor’s office; 
• Afghan National Police (ANP): numbering 95 officers (from Uzbek, Tajik and Pashtun communities);
• Afghan Local Police (ALP): 200 officers (ALP members are from different ethnic groups such as Uzbeks, Tajiks and Pashtuns). The ALP unit is led by Hamid, an Uzbek, Jamiat-e Islami affiliated commander from the Qarluq area . 

These figures indicate that government forces are outnumbered by far by the Taleban.

The shortage of security forces, a lack of timely deployment of reinforcements and supply logistics are the major obstacles faced by local forces, according to most of the interviewees. A school teacher, for instance, said the only reason the Taleban have not taken over the district centre is their fear of airstrikes by US forces. Otherwise, he added, the Taleban are already much stronger and better organised than the government forces. 

An ALP commander in Dasht-e Archi told AAN that there was no serious intention from the government side to fight the Taleban. “The security forces are frustrated by continual fighting,” he said. The ALP commander also said the security forces in the district concentrate on protecting their own territory from the Taleban and do not get timely reinforcements or logistical support to be able to carry out their own offensives. He added that the local Taleban also face issues such as the recruitment of new fighters and supplies. 

Taleban provision

The Taleban have established a parallel shadow government in the district to deal with daily affairs. A development council member from Dasht-e Archi told AAN that it includes “a district governor, head of education, judicial, health, public outreach, military and the finance committees.” According to all respondents, these posts are filled by young Pashtuns and Uzbeks from the district. (4)

All the respondents said the Taleban ‘out-govern’ the Afghan administration particularly in the justice sector in addressing disputes among local people. This is largely because the government justice system is effectively paralysed, given it operates remotely from Kunduz city. 

The Taleban’s justice committee operates as a primary court (ie appeals are heard elsewhere – see the following paragraph), where people submit letters to register their cases and get a receipt with an exact date to attend a hearing. Generally, the court takes a few days to review registered cases but it depends on their complexity and the availability of the Taleban’s judges. A number of respondents stated that the Taleban justice committee was always busy. Locals usually take their cases to the Taleban court, where they are adjudicated faster, without corruption and with satisfactory outcomes. For many people, the only available option for their grievances is the Taleban court. Although they do not readily admit it, they often register their cases with the Taleban court so that they can force the opposing side to attend the hearing and accept the Taleban verdicts.  

The primary Taleban court’s verdicts are mostly accepted by both parties. If not, they can turn to the Taleban’s provincial justice committee, which functions as an appeal court. This committee (the appeal court) does not have a permanent office but its judges are available in Topra Kash, a more rural area of Kunduz’s central district and around 15 kilometres to north of the provincial governor’s office. Respondents said that it mostly endorses the primary court’s decisions. When neither decision has been acceptable to a party, respondents said they can turn to the Taleban’s Leadership Council, also known as the Quetta Shura or sometimes to the Peshawar Shura. (The Peshawar Shura deals with issues related to eastern, central and northern regions.) It operates as the supreme court but it is difficult to access for ordinary people as it requires spending a lot of money to travel all the way to Quetta or Peshawar in order to register a case. To register a case with either of the Taleban’s councils, the appeal court needs to refer the case to them. Basically, the court provides a reference number for the case, as well as a contact number, address and names of the person responsible for the case. 

For the implementation of the primary court’s decisions, the shadow Taleban district governor plays a key role, supported by the military committees. For example, if there is a land dispute, the shadow governor asks the military commander of the specific village to implement whatever decision the court takes. Minor cases, such as family disputes, are sometimes referred to the local elders’ council. This depends on both sides’ accepting the move. The elders’ council decisions are often approved by the Taleban court and again implemented by the shadow district governor. 

Other Taleban committees deal with daily affairs. For example, their public outreach committee delivers speeches at social gatherings and during Friday prayers in mosques. Their finance committee collects taxes from agricultural land, shops, commercial services such as telecommunication networks, construction projects and any other source of income at the local level. Their education committee supervises schools (see more details below), the health committee monitors health facilities in the district and assures the attendance of health workers. Apart from the justice committee, the rest of the Taleban’s committees do not deliver services because they do not have the capacity or ability to do so.    

Service delivery

AAN conducted 10 in-depth interviews with key informants in Dasht-e Archi district, based on a semi-structured questionnaire, itself developed following a review of the relevant literature. They included tribal elders, district authorities, respected individuals in the district, civil society activists, a head teacher and other teachers from Taleban-controlled areas, a female teacher from a government-controlled area, a local doctor from a Taleban-controlled area and local journalists. They were asked a series of questions about their experiences and perceptions of education, health, telecommunication and electricity, and other services available in their district. For more detail about our research methodology see this dispatch. A summary and analysis of their answers in triangulation with the background information is presented below.

1. Education services 

According to various sources, that include the Afghan Ministry of Education, the district governor, the head of the district development council, school teachers and local people, there are 58 government schools in Dasht-e Archi district, 27 in buildings, and 29 open-air. Of these 57 schools, 14 are high schools (16 to 18 years old) two for girls and 12 for boys; 12 secondary schools (12 to 15 years old); 27 primary schools (six to 11 years old); four Ministry of Education-run religious schools (age six to 18 years old) and one teacher training centre. There are also around 20 private religious schools in the district. According to these sources, there are 27,550 students in the district, 17,907 boys and 9,643 girls. and 404 teachers, 379 male and 25 female, who work in the district. It is difficult to confirm whether these numbers are real or only on paper. Regarding the two girls’ high schools, one operates in a government-controlled area and the other in the Qarluq area, which fell to the Taleban in November 2018. As schools have been off for examinations and their winter break since then, it is not yet known whether the school will be allowed to re-open when the new school year starts after Nawruz (21 March). However, the signs are not good. All respondents said that in the Taleban area, girls are only allowed to study until aged 12 years old (grade six). 

The statistics on the gender of teachers are the most striking. Just six per cent of teachers in the whole district are female. These 25 individuals only teach in the two girls’ high schools. In all the remaining girls schools, including the secondary schools, girls are taught by male teachers. As will be seen, this is one factor keeping many girls at home. 

The managing and monitoring of the schools is divided between the insurgents and the government based on who controls the area. According to a school teacher interviewed by AAN, “The education department has a specific team of five to six people to monitor the schools.” A local government official said:

In government areas, the local education department monitors the schools. In the rest of the district the Taleban monitors them. The education department’s monitors visit the schools once or twice a week. The teachers/students’ attendance record, textbooks, teaching method are the issues that controllers focus on. 

However, the schools in most of the district (80 per cent of the territory) are controlled by the Taleban’s education committee, which has influence on local education staff and often interferes in the curriculum. A teacher from a Taleban-controlled area said that Mawlawi Naser Khaksar, head of the Taleban’s education committee for Dasht-e Archi, along with four or five mullahs, monitor the schools. The Taleban’s monitoring team checks the textbooks, and teachers’ and students’ attendance records. In the opinion of a school teacher from the Taleban-controlled area:

The Taleban monitoring-system is somehow similar to the education department, but they put more emphasis on religious subjects. In some areas the Taleban interfere in the education curriculum. For instance, they are not interested in social science being taught or textbooks on culture. 

Most of the respondents confirmedthat the Taleban’s education committee also insisted on the study of religious subjects such as fiqh (jurisprudence, Islamic law) being taught instead of mahratha-ye zendegi (social science) and farhang (culture), subjects that are part of the ministry of education’s curriculum. 

Moreover, the Taleban sometimes introduce their own members to serve as school teachers in their areas, several respondents said, thereby assuring their influence on society and the education sector and getting their own people paid government salaries. Usually, they said, the local elders’ shura (council) presents the Taleban’s demand on appointments of teachers to the government education department. The Taleban mainly introduce those who hold education certificates from madrassas. The local shura then introduces the Taleban member as a teacher of religious subjects and also as a preacher for their village mosque to the local government. In this way, the local shura assures the appointment of Taleban members. The local education department usually accepts the recommendations. These teachers then receive government salaries. The Taleban in Dasht-e Archi rarely dismiss teachers in their area, but there have been cases where they have pushed for this, for example when a teacher regularly misses classes without consulting the school headmaster or informing the Taleban’s education committee.  In general, the Taleban go directly to the school teachers themselves, or to local elders, to address their concerns, as a civil society activist explained: 

Taleban do not dismiss teachers, but they transfer teachers from one school to the other if a teacher regularly misses classes. The Taleban send a message to the [government] education department and ask for an official replacement of the teacher.

The most striking and recent example of how the Taleban exercise their control over the education sector is the closure of schools in the province, including in Dasht-e Archi, for more than a month at the beginning of 2018. This was a response to the ministry of education’s decision that teachers’ salaries would now be transferred to them via the banking system. Before, teachers’ salaries had been paid in cash directly to them at the schools. The Taleban considered the decision an attempt to curb their influence on the system – although they do not tax teachers’ salaries. The Taleban were also afraid that if their members had to go to the provincial centre to collect their salaries they might be caught by the Afghan security forces The closure lasted from March to late April 2018. The Taleban also instructed teachers to protest against the provincial education department. 

In Dasht-e Archi, all the schools remained closed until the elders stepped in and mediated between the Taleban and the government. Eventually, the Taleban accepted that payments through the banking system could go ahead because teachers had become frustrated by their fruitless protests and started to criticise the Taleban’s decision. The Taleban realised that a long close-down of the schools might turn the teachers against them. Therefore, they allowed teachers to reopen the schools.   

Some respondents pointed out that the Taleban’s monitoring is not rigorous. Unlike the Department of Education officials, who were said to be visiting schools once or twice a week, a development council member said that “the Taleban sometime visit a school twice a week but other times, they do not monitor the school even for a month.” This may be because the Taleban are foremost engaged in fighting and lack the capacity to systematically staff their monitoring teams. When there is a large-scale offensive against government forces, all Taleban members, including members of their education committee and even some teachers, take part. 

In some other areas, according to respondents, neither the local government education department nor the Taleban monitor schools close to the front lines. Therefore, they said it remained unclear whether the schools were open or shut. Education in the district has been badly affected by clashes between Taleban and government forces, which mostly happen in the spring and summer, when schools are in session (the main school holiday in Afghanistan is from December to March). The schools in Dasht-e Archi’s district centre have also been regularly affected and remained closed for long periods of time, as the centre changed hands between the ANSF and Taleban several times in 2015 and 2016. 

It is the continual fighting and instability in the district which does the most harm to girls’ education. The two girls’ high schools have been repeatedly caught in the crossfire between Taleban and government forces. The Lisa-ye Naswan-e Markazi (Central Girls’ High School), with around 1,500 students, was moved from its original building to a rented house due to insecurity in 2015, so students could attend classes without feeling under threat. According to a female school teacher, this was a decision taken by the school’s personnel. She said the school teachers (ten men and nine women) paid the rent from their own pocket. The other girls’ high school, Lisa-ye Naswan-e Qarluq (Qarluq girls’ High School), with around 1,400 students, was in an area on the frontline for a long time. In November 2018, the Taleban overran the Qarluq area entirely and the school came under their control. According to Abdullah Mushfeq, the school’s headmaster, the Taleban did not close the school and did allow students to hold their final exams in November. They also told him they would allow girls to attend the high school the following school year, from March 2019 (Nawruz). However, it is still unclear whether the Taleban will indeed allow the girls’ high school to operate this coming year. Speaking to AAN, a local elder from Qarluq who did not want to be named, said he did not expect the Taleban to allow girls to attend the high school. He added that some local Taleban members had already told people that girls would only be allowed to study until grade seven, or when they are 13 year old.     

Generally, people in Taleban-controlled areas allow their daughters to go to primary school, but forbid or dissuade them from continuing further. Additionally, the Taleban’s regulation that women and girls cannot go out of the house without a male member of their families also blocks the participation of women and girls in society.  or these reasons, girls above the age of 12 years, whether Pashtun or Uzbek cannot go to school in Taleban-controlled areas, nor can women serve as school teachers there.

Health services

According to the Afghan Ministry of Health’s data on the basic package of health services, there are ten health facilities in total in the district, including one Basic Health Centre (BHC), three Comprehensive Health Centres (CHC), and six Sub Health Centres (SHC). (5). Health facilities in the district operate in both areas, in the government-controlled as well as Taleban areas. Most of them, however, are located outside the district centre and in areas under Taleban control. 

Almost every respondent said that neither the government nor the Taleban interfere in the day-to-day work of the health sector. On the Taleban side, this is because the health service is crucial for them as they have to rely on it to ensure treatment for any of their fighters who get wounded or sick. 

The majority of the interviewees also said men and women have equal access to health services. However, there are issues related to women’s access and a lack of female doctors across the district. The Taleban strictly apply a rule that women can not go to a health facility without a male relative. This is the most serious problem women face, most respondents said. Some of the interviewees also complained about the lack of female doctors in the district, as well as the number of health facilities in the district. Generally, female doctors are not interested in working in insecure, Taleban-dominated districts and a district not educating most of its girls even to twelfth class will not be producing ‘locally-grown’ female doctors. Respondents said the only female health workers available in the district are local midwives and nurses who graduated from two-year medical courses in the government-run medical institute in Kunduz city. One female interviewee said: 

It is difficult for many women who live in far-flung areas to reach a clinic. In general, those who live close to a health clinic can have access. The number of health facilities is also not enough to address local demands. Young girls cannot go to a health clinic alone. Because of fear of the Taleban, even male doctors do not treat women in the absence of a male family member.

Health service delivery in Taleban-controlled areas also suffers from a number of other serious shortcomings. The major issues are a lack both of timely medical supplies and of electricity, a shortage of medicine and delays in medical workers’ salaries. These issues were illustrated by a local doctor when he talked with AAN in mid-October 2018: 

The Afghan government does not address our demands. There are low-quality medicines in health facilities throughout the district and we work in dark rooms without electricity. The medical workers have not received salaries for the past four months. The Ministry of Public Health should not hand over all its responsibilities to NGOs to address our demands. The ministry should monitor the health facilities and assure our safety, logistical support and timely payment of the health workers.   

The NGO he mentioned is Afghan, Just [sic] for Afghan Capacity and Knowledge (JACK). Until the end of 2018, another NGO, the Organisation for Health Promotion and Management (OHPM) also operated in the district, but then stopped after serious complaints about its failure to provide timely support to the health facilities. 

Local elders set up health shuras (councils) in order to ensure medical workers’ safety and the security of health clinics in a way that is independent from the Taleban, but also respected by them. It is not clear when exactly the shuras were set up, but locals say they have been there for years. The shuras consist of the representatives of villages served by the health facilities. A school teacher, who is also a member of a health shura, said: 

The health shura has 10 to 15 members from the villages nearest to the health facilities. The shura cooperates with the health clinics. For instance, the shura assures the safety and protection of female medical workers. 

Another member of a health shura said: 

The shura takes care of medical workers, as well as the property of the clinics. For instance, the shura does not allow locals to misuse the health facility. The main concern is the safety of female medical staff and their protection. 

The shuras do not allow weapons inside the health facilities, one interviewee said. 

 The Taleban have even set up their own health committee to regularly monitor health clinics in order to assure health workers attend their duties. The Taleban’s health committee is led by Qari Imran, a local Taleb from Dasht-e Archi. 

A civil society activist stated: 

The Taleban do not interfere in health clinics or their work. Of course, they sometimes use the health clinic’s ambulance for their injured fighters, but they do not force the doctors or nurses to only look after their fighters…. 

Access to electricity and media 

In 2014, the Provincial High Peace Council received 600,000 USD for a hydropower project in the district centre to supply power to around 1,000 households. The project was successfully implemented. However, in 2015, due to serious clashes between government forces and the Taleban, the hydropower station was entirely destroyed. Consequently, there is no supply of government-run electricity in Dasht-e Archi. As an alternative, many households have installed solar panels, which is sufficient to light rooms, recharge mobile phones and watch television.

Many residents in Dasht-e Archi who have access to electricity have TV sets at home that are connected to satellite dishes. People who can usually watch countrywide TV stations such as Tolo, Aryana, Shamshad and Aina, in order to follow the news and other programs. They also tune in to Central Asian TV stations, such as those from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. This is despite the Taleban ordering people not to watch TV or listen to music, instructions mostly delivered by the preachers during Friday prayers at the local mosques. They instead encourage people to listen to recitations of the Holy Quran and other Islamic programmes on the radio and at the mosque. In practice, however, these instructions are largely ignored, and the Taleban do not actively prevent people from listening to the radio or watching TV. For example, they do not conduct house searches for banned equipment. A civil society activist said:  

People place their satellite dishes in a hidden place. The dishes are mostly installed in the middle of the roof and covered with plastic. It looks like a greenhouse on the roof.

As for radio, there is no local radio station in Dasht-e Archi, although radio is widely listened to in the district. People listen to both national and foreign broadcasters. The latter, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the British BBC and the German Deutsche Welle, are mainly listened to by middle-aged or older people who want to follow the news. For younger people, national radio stations that broadcast music and other programmes such as cooking, sports and other entertainment are the favourite channels. According to a local elder,“There are one or two radios in every house.”

Most people, especially the young, listen to radio channels from Tajikistan, for music and other entertainment. They keep the sound low so that the neighbours cannot hear it. To have access to radio, householders place a long stick on the roof with an antenna on top of it. 

Access to telecommunication  

The other issue of concern in the district is the lack of access to mobile networks during the night. In Dasht-e Archi, telecommunication companies only operate during daylight, from six in the morning until four in the afternoon. The Taleban have forced mobile companies to switch off the network at night for security reasons. There are four active private mobile network operators in the district, Roshan, Afghan Wireless, Etisalat, and MTN. The Taleban do not allow Salaam mobile network because it is a government-run company. They have also instructed people to avoid using the Salaam mobile network. 

Most of the interviewees for this research said that telecommunication companies have complied with the Taleban’s instructions, implementing their orders immediately upon request, for fear of having their antennas destroyed by the insurgents. The Taleban also collect taxes from the companies. According to all of the respondents, the Taleban’s finance committee regularly receives money – amount unknown –from telecommunication companies based in Kunduz city. 

The Taleban banned the possession of internet-connected smart phones (ones without internet connection are allowed) among their own fighters in Dasht-e Archi in 2016. This rule was imposed after a number of drone attacks and night raids by the US and Afghan forces against Taleban commanders in the district (read media reports here). The Taleban perceive mobile networks as a tool that US and Afghan intelligence use to locate their hideouts. Only some people in government-controlled areas have smart phones with internet connections. In general, internet connections are very weak in the district and uploading a short video or a photo takes a long time. Locals in Dasht-e Archi mostly prefer to use old-style phones without internet access. In this way, they do not have to fear the Taleban. 

According to most of the respondents, residents in Taleban areas are supposed to have pro-Taleban songs on their smart phones (not connected to the internet), as well as religious scholars’ speeches on Jihad in case their phones were checked. In the same vein, they said, having a music video or a pro-government video could mark a person as a government spy, the penalty for which, they said, could be death. However, if people’s devices are checked by government forces and they carry pro-Taleban songs, they are perceived to be Taleban fighters and risk being arrested. In Dasht-e Archi, locals are forced to adjust their lives according to this doubly-coercive system. All in all, it is safer not to have a smart phone. A head teacher from Dasht-e Archi said: “It is better to have an ordinary phone without pro-government or pro-Taleban speeches or songs in it.”

Other available services 

Dasht-e Archi may have profited from development projects in the first half of the twentieth century, but today infrastructure development is marginalised. Insecurity is a ‘pretext’, interviewees insisted, used by the provincial government as an excuse for not carrying out construction or development projects. Respondents said that, in principle, the Taleban do allow NGOs to operate and that, in the past, they have allowed specific projects they considered beneficial, although they rejected others. All of the respondents believed that neither government nor non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were interested in carrying out development projects in the district. As to commercial construction projects, the Taleban charge a ten per cent tax on any project.

Construction of an asphalted Kunduz–Dasht-e Archi road, that was supposed to connect the district centre through Sher Khan Bandar dry port with Kunduz city, has only been partly implemented. Out of a total of 40 kilometres, only 21 kilometres, between Sher Khan Bandar and Dasht-e Archi have been asphalted; the remaining stretch of 19 kilometres remains unpaved. All the respondents said the Taleban were preventing the completion of the remaining part because they fear it would allow government forces in Dasht-e Archi to receive better reinforcements and supplies. 

The other roads, for example the 23-kilometre-long road between Dasht-e Archi and Khwaja Ghar district of Takhar province, and the 25-kilometre road between Imam Saheb district of Kunduz and Dasht-e Archi also remain non-asphalted. In these cases, according to most of the interviewees, this is due to neglect on the part of the local government. They said locals had asked for the upgrade of these roads a number of times, but the government, they said, had ignored their demands because of insecurity.  A provincial council member said: 

The Afghan government should pay more attention to Dasht-e Archi district. There is no development project in the district. If one compares Dasht-e Archi with other districts of Kunduz province, there are big differences in terms of allocated funds for development and construction projects.

It would seem the council member is somewhat right here, given that other insecure districts, such as Khanabad, Aliabad and Chahrdara, all have asphalted road to Kunduz city and electricity.

From the Taleban’s side, they provide nothing in the way of infrastructure.

Conclusion

From this research, it is clear that the significant presence of the Taleban in the district has meant they have a greater influence on most public services than the government, although – apart from in the judicial sector – they do not provide any services of their own. The Taleban’s presence in more than four-fifths of the district has harmedlocal government morale and its ability to monitor the delivery of basic services. 

Given their ability to control large swathes of territory and the people who live there, the Taleban are able directly interfere in services. In education, they play a large role in monitoring schools, notably teachers and students’ attendance records. They change the curriculum by adding more religious books and banning ‘modern’ subjects, as well as appointing their own members as teachers. Furthermore, they dictate the conditions under which girls’ education is possible. They enforce strict rules on telecommunication services. Their shadow government system is currently perceived to be much stronger than the government’s, not least through their tax-collection system – they tax not only the local population’s economic activities but also commercial services such as telecommunications. Without their blessing, the delivery of public services would be severely hampered.

Dasht-e Archi is a district in which the government forces’ presence is mainly symbolic, protecting as people put it “a few billboards within the district centre” (the forces are only able to protect the district governor office, district police chief’s compound and limited areas around the district centre). The local government is not capable of lobbying for construction or development projects in order to bring in income and generate work opportunities. For the local population, living in insecurity and largely ruled by the Taleban, and with local government largely absent means there is a limit to how much NGOs, government or companies want to work in their area.   

Edited by Thomas Ruttig, Jelena Bjelica and Kate Clark

(1) Before 1964, Afghanistan had five provinces, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Turkistan, and Qataghan and Badakhshan. In 1963, Qataghan and Badakhshan and was divided into four provinces, Baghlan, Kunduz, Takhar and Badakhshan (more details in this Ministry of Education high school geography textbook, grade 12,).

(2) Muhammad Gul Mohmand was a close aide of King Nader Shah’s and from 1930 served in various high-ranking government posts, for example as interior minister. While serving as tanzimayi rais, he was governor for the provinces of Qataghan and Badakhshan and Turkistan, as well as the hukumat-e ala (a lower-ranking province) Maimana (see map here). He was the author of ten books, most of them about Pashto literature and language. He was also a strong promoter of making Pashto as the country’s official language (read more here).

(3) It is possible that the IDLG included the Jundullah fighters when speaking about Central Asians. AAN has found during previous research on non-Pashtun Taleban and other insurgent groups in northern Afghanistan, that government information about these groups is often sketchy and vague.

(4) The Taleban’s shadow government for Dasht-e Archi comprises: 

• Mullah Zulfeqar: Taleban’s shadow district governor for Dasht-e Archi. He is originally from Takhar province but stays in Dasht-e Archi; 
• Mawlawi Naser Khaksar: Taleban’s head of education committee, originally from Dasht-e Archi;
• Mawlawi Musa: head of the judicial committee, originally from Dasht-e Archi;
• Mawlawi Awaz: head of the military committee, originally from Dasht-e Archi;
• Mawlawi Kaber: head of the public outreach committee, originally from Dasht-e Archi;
• Mawlawi Neyaz Muhammad: head of the finance committee, originally from Dasht-e Archi.

(5) Afghanistan developed its basic package of health services (BPHS) in 2003. The BPHS is implemented by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in Afghanistan and currently outsourced to 40 national and international NGOs, who are mandated with delivering BPHS services in 31 provinces. In the remaining three provinces, the MoPH delivers BPHS directly. For an overview of health service delivery in Afghanistan, see here.

The downturn in civilian casualties recorded in 2017 has reversed. UNAMA, in its 2018 Annual Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict in Afghanistan, released today, records almost 11,000 civilians injured or killed in 2018, a five per cent increase compared to 2017. It is the highest number of civilian casualties on record. The Taleban continue to cause the most civilian casualties, says UNAMA, although the Islamic State’s local franchise, ISKP, and its use of suicide attacks has pushed casualties from that type of attack to a new high. Civilian casualties from air operations, mainly carried out by international forces, are also at an unprecedented high. Certain parts of the Afghan security apparatus – largely CIA-supported and operating with impunity – have also precipitated a huge jump in civilian casualties during search operations. AAN co-director Kate Clark has delved into the report.

UNAMA’s report 2018 report into the Protection of Civilians can be read here, as can all previous reports: 

AAN analysis of UNAMA’s earlier annual reports can be read here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013 and 2012.

The statistics:

• 10,993 civilian casualties (3,804 deaths and 7,189 injured), representing an increase of five per cent compared to 2017 (with an eleven per cent increase in deaths and two per cent in injuries);
• 1,152 women casualties (350 deaths and 802 injured), a six per cent decrease from 2017;
• 3,062 child casualties (927 deaths and 2,135 injured), representing a “slight decrease” from 2017.

Since 2009 when UNAMA began systematically recording civilian casualties, it has documented 91,675 civilian casualties (32,114 killed and 59,561 injured).

How civilians were killed and injured (in order of magnitude):

Cause of CasualtyTotal Number of CasualtiesTotal Number of DeathsTotal Number of InjuredPercentage of all Civilian CasualtiesComparison with 2017Ground Engagements3,3828142,56831%3% decreaseComplex and Suicide Attacks2,8098861,92326%22% increaseImprovised Explosive Devices (IEDs)1,818 4751,343  16%2% decreaseUS and Afghan Forces Air Operations1,015 5364799% 61%  increaseExplosive Remnants of War4921503424% 23% decreaseSearch operations 353284693%       185% increase

Who is responsible?

Anti-Government Elements (AGEs), including the Taleban, the Islamic State Khorasan Province, ISKP (also known as Daesh), and other Afghan and foreign insurgent groups, were responsible for a total of 6,980 civilian casualties (2,243 deaths and 4,737 injured), representing 65 per cent of all civilian casualties, a three per cent increase compared to 2017.

Insurgent ActorTotal Number of CasualtiesTotal Number of DeathsTotal Number of InjuredPercentage of all Civilian CasualtiesComparison with 2016Taleban4,0721,3482,72437% 7% decreaseISKP2,181 681 1,50020% 118% increaseUndetermined AGEs and other actors6781964826%

The leading causes of civilian casualties carried out by AGEs (in order of magnitude) 

• suicide and complex attacks
• IEDs
• ground engagements

Pro-government forces, including Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), international forces (only the US has a declared combat mission in Afghanistan with military forces and the CIA present), and pro-government armed groups, were responsible for a total of 2,612 civilian casualties (1,185 deaths and 1,427 injured), representing 24 per cent of all civilian casualties, an increase of 24 per cent (and reversing the decrease of 23 per cent in 2017). 

Pro-Government ActorTotal Number of CasualtiesTotal Number of DeathsTotal Number of InjuredPercentage of all Civilian CasualtiesANSF1,535606 92914% (about the same)Pro-Government armed groups180 9981 2%  (94% increase)International military674 406268 6% (146% increase)Undetermined or multiple pro-government forces7743342% 

The leading causes of death by pro-government forces (in order of magnitude)

• ground engagements and aerial operations (each 39 per cent of the total)
• casualties resulting from search operations (14 per cent)

Unattributed cross-fire in ground engagements caused 10 per cent of all civilian casualties. Shelling from Pakistan into Afghanistan resulted in 60 civilian casualties (13 deaths and 47 injured), or one per cent of civilian casualties,about the same as in 2017. The remaining two per cent of civilian casualties could not be attributed to any party, but were mainly caused by explosive remnants of war.

Analysis

The Afghan war hit many horrible new records in 2018. More civilians were killed or injured in 2018 than in any single year since UNAMA began systematic monitoring, in 2009. The year saw record civilian casualties from suicide and complex attacks, and from air operations. The worst single attack recorded by UNAMA also took place. When the Taleban detonated an IED in a van painted to look like an ambulance outside the Ministry of Interior in Kabul on 27 January 2018 in Kabul, they killed 114 civilians and injured 229 others.

Afghanistan also suffered unprecedented election-related violence. From the start of voter registration on 14 April to the end of 2018, UNAMA verified 1,007 election-related civilian casualties (226 deaths and 781 injured) with more than half occurring on the two polling days (20-21 October). The first day of polling, according to UNAMA, recorded the highest number of civilian casualties on any single day in 2018. 310 civilians were also the victims of election-related abductions. 

In 2018, a record number of children were killed in the armed conflict (927; albeit just one more than 2016, but an increase since 2017). While there was a slight decrease in child casualties overall (including those injured), due to a decrease in casualties from ground engagements and explosive remnants of war, UNAMA noted that the increase in child deaths was attributable to airstrikes, including those carried out by international forces. 

Meanwhile, downward trends in 2018 were far fewer: those killed and injured in ground engagements continued to decline (by three per cent, following a 23 per cent reduction in 2017) – although this remained the leading cause of civilian casualties. There was also a reduction in civilian casualties from targeted killings by insurgents.

The one bright spark of hope in 2018 was the Eid ceasefire in June during which, with the exception of ISKP which neither called its own ceasefire, nor respected the Taleban, government and international forces’ ceasefires, was upheld. As we reported, it allowed Afghans to imagine their country at peace. Although not everyone was happy with it, many Afghans, both civilians and combatants from both sides took the opportunity to cross frontlines and fraternise with ‘the enemy’ (see reporting on varying experiences here). In September 2018, the United States also appointed a Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, its former ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad (see AAN reporting here). He has, at least, given a push to thoughts of how to achieve a political settlement, although nothing (yet) has translated into any reduction in civilian harm on the battlefield. 

UNAMA’s report is long, thorough and full of statistics, analysis and stories detailing the human and personal cost of the war. AAN recommends reading it in full. This dispatch is not intended to reflect the granular detail of UNAMA’s report, but focuses on four important trends: the decrease in casualties in ground operations; the sharp rises in civilians killed and injured in suicide and complex attacks, especially by ISKP; and in aerial operations; and in search operations by pro-government forces, especially NDS paramilitaries and the pro-government, but outside government command, Khost Protection Force.

Ground engagements

Civilian casualties from ground engagements dropped for the second year in a row. Three per cent fewer civilians were killed in ground engagements in 2018 compared to 2017, and that was 23 per cent lower than in 2016. (The pro-government forces causing civilian casualties in ground engagements were almost entirely ANSF and pro-government groups; UNAMA held international military forces responsible for only two per cent.) 

According to UNAMA, the most important factor in this overall reduction was a 44 per cent decrease in civilian casualties resulting from shooting by pro-government forces. At the same time, however, indirect weapons (such as mortars, rockets and grenades) used by pro-government forces caused harm to civilians at roughly the same level as in 2017 (854 civilian casualties – 211 deaths and 643 injured). UNAMA again called for all sides to cease using indirect weapons from and into civilian-populated areas. 

UNAMA noted that efforts by pro-government forces “to prevent civilian casualties, including continued implementation of policies and efforts to train forces, track and learn from civilian casualty incidents, contributed to the decrease in civilian casualties from ground engagements.” UNAMA also observed a decrease in the number of civilians killed by Taleban shooting during ground engagements, although casualties from indirect fire increased. 

UNAMA highlights two other factors helping to push down casualties from ground engagements: the shift in ground fighting “towards more sparsely populated areas,” and “warnings provided to civilians where fighting occurred.” Where fighting did take place in urban areas, casualties were high. During the Taleban’s five day offensive on Ghazni city on 10-14 August (see AAN reporting here and here), 262 civilians were killed (79) and injured (183); UNAMA says these figures may be underestimates due to difficulties in accessing the city to verify additional reports of casualties. Most of the verified casualties were from indirect weapons (130 – 26 deaths and 104 injured) and small arms fired (36 – 13 deaths and 23 injured) during ground engagements. (UNAMA also recorded targeted killings by the Taleban, and seven air strikes by pro-government forces which caused 81 civilian casualties). 

Suicide and complex attacks

The 22 per cent increase in deaths and injuries caused by suicide and complex attacks was driven largely by ISKP. It was responsible for 87 per cent of the civilian casualties caused by these types of attacks. Despite constituting a significantly smaller fighting force than the Taleban, ISKP caused one fifth of all civilian casualties in the Afghan conflict. The number of its civilian victims more than doubled in 2018 compared to 2017 (from 843 to 1,871). As ISKP has been beaten back by US and Afghan government forces in Nangrahar province, where it now operates from a far smaller territorial base (see recent AAN reporting), it has, as UNAMA says, “increasingly relied on asymmetric tactics, including suicide and complex attacks deliberately targeting civilians (including most prominently the Shia Hazara community).” That civilian harm was mainly split between Kabul city (1,027 civilian casualties) and Nangrahar province (991 civilian casualties), with a notable attack also on Shia Muslim worshippers in a mosque in a village in Paktia (see AAN reporting).

ISKP also pushed up the numbers of civilians targeted deliberately in the conflict in 2018: 48 per cent more than 2017 (4,125 people – 1,404 killed and 2,271 injured). 

Aerial Operations

1,015 civilians were killed (536) or injured (479) in aerial operations in 2018, mostly by international military forces (632 civilian casualties – 393 deaths and 239 injured). (1) This represents a 61 per cent increase in casualties from this type of operation – accelerating a trend noted in 2017 (seven per cent increase compared to 2016). A large majority of the casualties (82 per cent) were deaths. Aerial operations were also accountable for the record number of child deaths this year in the conflict: the number of children killed in airstrikes more than doubled compared to 2017.

The US air force released 70 per cent more weapons in air operations in 2018 than in 2017 (7,362 compared to 4,36; itself a significant increase on the 1,337 weapons released in 2016), and caused more than double the number of civilian casualties. UNAMA says this followed additional deployments to Afghanistan at the end of 2017 and “a relaxation in the rules of engagement for United States forces in Afghanistan, which removed certain “proximity” requirements for airstrikes.” While the report does not provide any more details, UNAMA cites testimony made by then defence secretary General Jim Mattis in which he agreed with a question from a Senate Armed Services Committee member that “aggressive action and use of air power” was part of the “new strategy in Afghanistan.” Mattis said that the “kind of restrictions that did not allow us to employ the air power fully have been removed,” but that they would still do “everything humanly possible to protect the innocent that the enemy purposely jeopardizes by fighting from in amongst them.” Not surprisingly, the new rules have not been published, but Mattis’ remarks suggest they allow the US air force to interpret what constitutes a defensive operation far more broadly than before. (See his remarks in full in footnote 2.) 

Such rules are crucial. In the latter years of the ISAF and Enduring Freedom missions (which ended on 31 December 2014), the US military realised the harm civilian casualties were doing to its military mission and the overall political project. Its drive to reduce civilian casualties included new tactical directives on the use of air power introduced in late 2011. They included the instruction, “Presume that: every Afghan is a civilian until otherwise apparent; all compounds are civilian structures unless otherwise apparent; in every location where there is evidence of human habitation, civilians are present until otherwise apparent.” Approval for the defensive use of air fire depended on troops on the ground being in danger. (For detail, see this dispatch). In conversations with military personnel following the bombing of the Medecins Sans Frontier hospital in Kunduz by US aircraft in October 2015, ie after ISAF/Enduring Freedom had been replaced by Operation Resolute Support and Freedom’s Sentinel, AAN was told instructions then had not changed (our analysis of why and how the strike on the hospital happened was to do with rules and safeguards not having been followed – see here).

The UNAMA report suggests the US military is now taking a more ‘robust’ line against insurgents using civilian homes as cover. It gives as one example US forces carrying out airstrikes on a residential compound in Chahardara district, in Kunduz province, on the morning of 19 July 2018, which killed 14 women and children; indeed all the members of one extended family were killed except one baby, who was injured.

The incident took place during a ground operation by Afghan national security forces, including Afghan National Army commandos, who were supported by international military forces on the ground. During the operation, Afghan forces reportedly came under attack and responded with heavy gunfire, followed by mortars, on the compound from which they believed the shooting originated. A member of the family inside the compound reportedly called an Afghan Local Police commander stationed nearby to ask for help getting out of the house, but before anything could be done, an international military forces’ jet conducted an airstrike on the corner of the compound where they were located. A second bomb was then dropped directly on the house, completely destroying the building.

The US eventually accepted that civilians had been killed in the air strike. (3) 

In assessing the significant increase in civilian casualties related to air strikes, UNAMA said that, “[e]ven if one party to the conflict fails to respect international humanitarian law, that does not absolve opposing parties from their international humanitarian law obligations” and that, aerial operations should be cancelled or suspended if it “if it becomes apparent that it may be expected to cause civilian harm that would be excessive to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” UNAMA says those carrying out air operations must balance the military advantage against expected civilian harm and “take into account the likelihood of civilians being present in the area or inside structures from which Anti-Government Elements may be fighting.” It has called on Afghan and US forces to “review targeting criteria and pre-engagement precautionary measures, particularly considering the likelihood of civilians being present in the same buildings and locations as Anti-Government Elements.”

UNAMA says it is “particularly concerned that aerial operations by international military forces conducted in support of Afghan forces, mainly National Directorate of Security (NDS) Special Forces, during search operations, have also caused significantly more civilian casualties (including extremely high numbers of deaths) in 2018.” Civilian casualties resulting from those search operations also, themselves, shot up in 2018.

Search operations – NDS special forces, Khost Protection Force and the role of the CIA

Search operations by pro-government forces, said UNAMA, caused 353 civilian casualties (284 deaths and 69 injured) in 2018, a 185 per cent rise from 2017, when 92 civilians were killed (63) or injured (29). The vast majority of the casualties were caused by the NDS Special Forces and the extra-legal Khost Protection Force, both of which, says UNAMA “are supported by international military forces.” 

Most of the casualties caused by search operations were by NDS special forces (see reporting by AAN from 2013 on them here). In 51 incidents documented by UNAMA, 19 of which were joint operations with international military forces, 240 civilians were killed (203) or injured (37). All took place in central, eastern and southern regions (teams are known as NDS-01, operating in the central region; NDS-02 in the eastern region; and NDS-03 in the southern region). UNAMA also documented 51 civilian casualties (41 deaths, 10 injured) caused during 13 search operations conducted by the Khost Protection Force. (4) Such incidents have also been documented by AAN, including how the Khost Protection Force was accused of intentionally killing in a joint operation with US forces, presumed to be CIA, in Zurmat district of Paktia on 30 December 2018, the media (for example here and Human Rights Watch).

UNAMA said “[t]he high number of fatalities compared to the number of injured suggests that force was employed indiscriminately.” Additionally, UNAMA raised concerns 

…about the significant increase in incidents of human abuses, criminality and damage to civilian property by the Khost Protection Force. UNAMA has also received reports of unlawful and arbitrary detention, including following mass arrests, by different National Directorate of Security Special Forces, and the Khost Protection Force. It received credible accounts of detainees having experienced torture or ill-treatment while held in places under the authority of these entities.

UNAMA reports that 21 per cent of all civilian casualties caused by pro-government armed groups were carried out intentionally, mostly by the Khost Protection Force.

Overall, civilian casualties attributed to the Khost Protection Force in 2018 increased by more than ten-fold compared to 2017, with 107 casualties (70 deaths and 37 injured) in 22 documented incidents, compared with five (three deaths and two injured) in 2017. Some of those civilians were deliberately killed, said UNAMA, while others were incidentally harmed during search operations and others were harmed in ground operations. UNAMA says the group’s area of operations expanded in 2014, with 14 incidents documented in Khost, four in Paktia and four in Paktika. It has also intentionally damaged civilian property, including homes and vehicles, and illegally detained people. UNAMA calls on the government to 

… either formally incorporate the Khost Protection Force into its armed forces, and hold its members accountable for any potential violations of international humanitarian law and abuses of international human rights law, or to disband the group and investigate and prosecute members for acts allegedly contravening Afghanistan’s criminal law.

What is significant in looking at these search operations is that Afghan army special forces also carries them out, but is not reported as causing civilian harm. As AAN understands it, they are mainly supported by the US Special Forces while the NDS paramilitaries and the Khost Protection Force are supported by the CIA, although this is, of course, a very murky area (see AAN reporting here). The Khost Protection Force is not even part of the formal Afghan government apparatus, but a ‘campaign force’ ie, it has a foreign chain of command, answering to the CIA. As UNAMA says, its operations, along with those of NDS special forces, “appear to be coordinated with international military actors, that is, outside of the normal Governmental chain of command, which raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability for these operations.”  That the NDS and Khost Protection Force are problematic and Afghan army special forces are not implies systemic problems with the former in terms of command and control, and impunity.

One thing to note is that, like ISAF before it, it is NATO’s Resolute Support mission which answers to queries from UNAMA on civilian casualties, even though Resolute Support is non-combat (with a mandate only to use lethal force in self-defence). It is not the US military, which has its can-be-combat Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, nor the CIA which respond to enquiries about civilian casualties either from US air strikes or from search operations by CIA-supported armed groups.

Conclusion

As someone who has followed the Afghan conflict over many years, this author has come to expect demoralising news on civilian casualties from UNAMA’s annual reporting. However, this year, many of the trends are particularly worrying. There have been small improvements in Afghan Security Forces’ attempts to protect civilians, although the numbers killed and injured by government forces remain roughly the same as in 2017. The numbers killed and injured by the Taleban have fallen, but remain at shockingly high levels; the movement is still the main cause of civilian casualties in the conflict. Meanwhile, ISKP’s transformation into a sectarian, terrorist outfit bent on carrying out large-scale, deliberate attacks on civilians in cities has meant calamitous casualties in horrific single attacks.

On the pro-government side, two trends were of especial concern. The first was the sharp rise in civilian casualties from air operations, especially those by international forces. This is especially so given the efforts made in the latter years of the ISAF/Enduring Freedom missions by the US military to drive civilian casualties down. In 2017, civilian casualties from air strikes also rose, but UNAMA could still argue then that, proportionally (ie in relation to the number of weapons dropped), they had not. This, it said, suggested that the “quality of safeguards is not falling.” (6) Commenting on air strikes conducted by international forces in 2018, by contrast, UNAMA has written at length about air strikes in relation to the Geneva Conventions and its principles of proportionality, precautions and discrimination. (5) It called on international forces to:

Thoroughly review and strengthen current tactical protocols to prevent civilian casualties, particularly in the context of strikes carried out in support of Afghan and/or international military forces on the ground who come under attack, and strikes carried out on structures in any context. 

The harm done to civilians by NDS special forces and the Khost Protection Force is alarming, not only because of the sharp increase in civilians killed and injured, but also, because as UNAMA has documented, many of the killings were deliberate. Furthermore, both groups appear to answer to a foreign chain of command. This helps make it difficult, if not impossible, for Afghan civilians harmed by their actions to hold them or their main backer, the CIA, to account (see AAN reporting from 2012 on the CIA’s role in the war).

In 2019, Afghanistan will enter its fortieth year of war and eighteenth year of this particular phase of the conflict, with little hope in sight that the harm done to civilians on the battlefield will be reduced – unless and until there is progress in a political settlement and an enduring ceasefire.  

Edited by Danielle Moylan

(1) UNAMA attributed 304 casualties in aerial operations (118 deaths and 186 injured) to the Afghan Air Force and said it could not determine responsibility for the remaining 79 civilian casualties.

(2) Excerpt from proceedings of the US Committee On Armed Services on the Political and Security Situation In Afghanistan on 3 October 2017.

Senator Fischer: Okay. Over the last few years, we have seen a decrease in our combat air operations in Afghanistan. From 2010 to 2015, we saw the total sorties conducted against enemy targets decrease by 84 percent in a span of only 5 years. During the previous administration, this was coupled with, I felt, very restrictive rules of engagement, and that focused on returning fire rather than allowing commanders to proactively attack those Taliban targets. In contrast, the air campaign against ISIS [in Iraq and possibly Syria] has reached record levels with over 21,000 sorties flown in 2016. The use of American air power helped stem further inroads by ISIS, and I think it was used successfully in locations such as Sinjar and Ramadi. Are we looking at something similar, this aggressive action and use of air power, as a new strategy in Afghanistan? 

Secretary Mattis: It is embedded in the revised strategy [on Afghanistan and South Asia, announced by President Trump on 21 August 2017], absolutely. In 2017, as you noted, we have had more airstrikes than any year since 2012. 

So already, you see some of the results of releasing our military from, for example, a proximity requirement. How close was the enemy to the Afghan or the U.S.-advised Special Forces? That is no longer the case, for example.

So these kind of restrictions that did not allow us to employ the air power fully have been removed, yes. 

That said, we will never fight at any time, especially in these wars among innocent people, without doing everything humanly possible to protect the innocent that the enemy purposely jeopardizes by fighting from in amongst them. That is something we will always take as an absolute, in terms of how we conduct our tactical events on the battlefield.

(3) UNAMA reported that on 20 July, the Afghan Ministry of Defence acknowledged the civilian casualties. A US military spokesperson denied this on 25 July, telling the media all those killed in the attack had been legitimate military targets, and it was denied again on 10 August. “Following significant advocacy from UNAMA,” the 2018 Protection of Civilians report says, “Resolute Support reopened its review process of the incident and it proceeded to a formal investigation under United States Army Regulation 15-6, which confirmed 12 civilians were killed and one injured.” 

(4) UNAMA attributed the remaining civilian casualties from search operations by pro-government Forces as follows: 13 civilian casualties (8 deaths and 5 injured) jointly to various pro-government forces; five civilian casualties (4 deaths and 1 injured) to international military forces; and 11 civilian casualties (9 killed 2 injured) to undetermined pro-government forces.

(5) UNAMA explains these principles in its legal section:

The contents of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and several rules similar to those found in their Additional Protocols are also largely part of customary international humanitarian law. The following are amongst the most relevant principles that apply to all the parties in the conduct of hostilities in Afghanistan’s non-international armed conflict (for the quotations see footnotes on page 58 of the report) :

• Distinction: The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack and parties to the conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants.

• Proportionality: “an attack against a military objective which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.”

• Precautions in attack: “[…] civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations”.“In the conduct of military operations, constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects” and all feasible precautions must be taken with the “view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

Russian PKP Pecheneg General Purpose Machine Gun

Member States representatives together with cyber research experts from the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), industry, research organisations and academia recently met at an EDA workshop to discuss  ‘Autonomous Cyber Responses’. This research topic refers to the challenges brought about by the automation in cyber defence and includes among others self-configured networks, automated cyber resilience, decision support systems, visual analytics, autonomous mobile cyber defence agents, man-machine modules and machine learning models to address the cyber research challenges Member States’ Armed Forces are confronted with.

The objective of the workshop was to provide EDA’s Cyber Research and Technology Ad Hoc Working Group with examples of European research efforts and solutions, to identify capability gaps that could be covered with this technology and to explore new collaboration initiatives in this challenging field.

Participants acknowledged the urgency of meaningful collaborative research activities at EU level in view of building tomorrow’s defence capabilities, and supported the continuation of similar initiatives. A so-called ‘Interested Community of Experts’ (ICE) set up within the Ad Hoc Working Group will perform an evaluation of the proposals discussed at the workshop. Outline descriptions for future collaborative research projects in this field are expected to be presented to Member States in the upcoming meetings.
 

Background

The potential benefits that European Armed Forces could draw from the use of cyber-resilient autonomous systems have also been recognised by EU Member States. One of the 11 EU Capability Development Priorities approved by Member States in June 2018 is called “Enabling capabilities for cyber responsive operations”.

The Overarching Strategic Research Agenda (OSRA) - which provides a necessary link between R&T efforts and the military tasks and long-term capability needs of the Capability Development Plan (CDP) -  identified a number of Research and Technology areas, the so-called Technology Building Blocks (TBBs), in which a cooperative approach at the European level would bring an added-value to support the development of defence capabilities. The Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) on Cyber Defence developed within the relevant EDA Ad Hoc Working Group in compliance with OSRA requirements provides informed prioritisation on cyber-related technologies necessary for the military while identifying opportunities for dual-use efforts and investments, be it in national, multinational or EU-funded contexts. Autonomous Cyber Response is one of the TBBs developed under the Cyber SRA.

In November 2018, the European Council adopted an updated version of the EU cyber defence policy framework (CDPF) which calls for considering cyber defence issues in the calls of the Preparatory Action on Defence Research and in the topics called for in the European Defence Fund.

American M1296 Dragoon Armored Personnel Carrier

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It has been almost four years since the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) captured territory in southern Nangrahar province, where it ruled with extreme brutality, and nearly two years since the United States military and Afghan government forces began concertedly fighting the group there. (The Taleban, too, have fought ISKP sporadically.) The last commander of NATO and US forces, General John Nicholson, vowed then that he intended to defeat ISKP in 2017. It has been driven back, but still holds some territory – and the ‘battle’ goes on, with ISKP mainly now targeting civilians in large-scale, urban, terrorist attacks. In this dispatch, we get an eye-witness account of the fighting in Nangrahar from journalist Andrew Quilty* and juxtapose it with excerpts from an article that appeared in the German media. 

Journalists Andrew Quilty, from Australia, and Wolfgang Bauer, from Germany, have both spent time with pro-government forces fighting ISKP, also known as Daesh, in the Mamand valley of Achin district. Quilty was based in a small US special forces base, while Bauer was with a unit of the Afghan National Border Police (ANBP). Their reportage gives insight into the daily life of soldiers, police and local civilians. They discuss air strikes and cooperation between US and Afghan forces and the difficulty of shifting ISKP from territory and from minds. They share one conclusion, that the fight against ISKP will only succeed if the local population come to trust the government and they question the US special forces alliance with one local strongman in particular, a commander of an Afghan Local Police unit named Belal Pacha, whom locals accused of murder and kidnap. After the end of Quilty and Bauer’s reporting trips, Belal was arrested and jailed. 

Both journalists have anonymised the names of soldiers and officers.

Andrew Quilty: 2018

With their heads bowed, the 12-man Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) team gathered around the visiting army chaplain. It was July 2018 and at 7am, as the sun flooded the Mamand Valley in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangrahar Province, it was already sweltering.  “…As we impose costs on the enemy,” said the chaplain, “[we] strike fear into their hearts, and deal blows of death from which they will not recover.” The team chuckled with approval at the violence evoked by a holy man, then mounted their vehicles and departed. It was one of the final missions of their six-month deployment to rid the valley, less than ten miles from the border with Pakistan, of fighters from the Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch, the ISKP. 

The rise of ISKP

The so-called Islamic State was declared by Iraqi-born Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, in Mosul, Iraq, in June 2014. That same year, militants from Pakistan were welcomed by communities in southern Nangrahar after they had crossed the Durand Line from their redoubts in North Waziristan, one of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). They were fleeing Pakistani military operations. By April 2015, those militants were pledging allegiance to the new, self-declared caliph in Iraq. 

Prior to this, residents of the Mamand Valley had lived for several years under uncontested Taleban rule – described by some as strict but fair, and by others as merely “less cruel than Daesh.” Taleban control across southern Nangrahar at that time was characterised by a lack of cohesion that made for ineffective shadow governance. ISKP seized on the disorder and forced the Taleban out. ISKP was also able to establish itself in southern Nangrahar because of the disarray and rivalry that ran through government, security and societal networks. As then AAN researcher Borhan Osman wrote, in September 2017. “The weakness of these anti-ISKP forces [government, tribal and Taleban] was coupled with the vitality of two pro-ISKP forces: small militant groups lacking fixed loyalties and the Salafi militants fighting in the ranks of the insurgency.” He continued, “As for local communities, in essence… they have been consistently undermined in recent decades and had become too divided to stand as a bulwark against a new and extremely brutal armed group.”

Locals described the new group as initially ruling benevolently, but then descending into “darkness.” At first, ISKP offered generous salaries to new recruits, sometimes exploiting inter-tribal rivalries and local grievances to strengthen their ranks. Some Taleban groups defected and soon foreign fighters from Central Asia and the Caucasus also began to appear, joining the Pakistanis already in the valley. Within months, however, ISKP changed. Their edicts grew harsher even than those the Taleban had inflicted on Afghans during their time in power (1996 to 2001). The atrocities for which ISKP would quickly become famous – including murder, house burning, forced marriage and closing schools – gave most residents little choice but to leave. In 2015, thousands of families fled Achin, the site of ISKP’s first ‘capital’.

Joint US-Afghan operations against ISKP began across southern Nangrahar in early April 2017. After retaking several villages between Achin district centre and the foot of the Spinghar Mountains, the advance of the US special forces and their Afghan allies, foremost among them, the Afghan National Army Special Forces (ANASF), stalled at the mouth of the Mamand Valley, where ISKP fighters fought from a decades-old cave complex. On April 13 2017, President Trump authorised the use of the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat – the so-called Mother Of All Bombs, shortened to ‘MOAB’. It obliterated the ISKP frontline and allowed special forces into the valley (see AAN reporting here). The US established Observation Post (OP) Bravo, just over a kilometre from the site of the MOAB. 

The following month, in May 2017, General John Nicholson, then commander of US forces in Afghanistan, declaredhis intent “to defeat ISIS-K [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Khorasan, aka ISKP] in 2017.”

Visiting Blackfish

Captain J – mild-mannered with a scruffy, ginger beard – arrived in the Mamand Valley ten months after Nicholson’s declaration, in March 2018. He was on his first combat tour at the age of 31. His Army Green Beret team, from 2nd Battalion, First Special Forces Group, based out of Tacoma, Washington state, was the third team to occupy OP Bravo. They renamed the base ‘Combat Outpost (COP) Blackfish’, after their team logo, which combines the team’s home-base on America’s Pacific Ocean coast and a marine ‘animal of war’, the killer whale, also known in Washington state as ‘blackfish’. 

Blackfish was established in an abandoned Afghan farm compound. A colourfully-painted concrete structure contained the ‘team room’ of the ODA (short for Operational Detachment Alpha, the 12-person team made up of Army Green Berets, and an Airforce Combat Controller and ‘parajumper’). The room was filled with combat equipment and shelves stocked with junk food and energy drinks. There were three small bedrooms and, separated by a flat-pack timber wall, an operations room. This was the only part of the base I was forbidden to enter. A black Islamic State flag was still painted on the wall from the time the militants had occupied it.

Despite being in one of the most hostile districts in the country, at the time, the ODA’s physical defences were meagre. While the corners of Blackfish were manned by conventional soldiers with heavy machine guns, some of the base’s boundaries were secured by nothing more than knee-high concertina-wire. Part of the reason could be heard, almost constantly, in the sky above. SOF’s place, high in the US military hierarchy, means they have almost unparalleled access to air support, including F16 jets, Apache attack helicopters, surveillance and weaponised drones and B1 bombers. On at least one occasion during the two embeds I was invited on, there were no less than five ‘air assets’ circling above Blackfish.

After two previous ODAs and their Afghan National Army Special Forces (ANASF) counterparts had fought their way into Mamand, Captain J’s mission was to continue pushing ISKP back, extending the Afghan government’s reach into Achin’s remote valleys. Two months before the team arrived, a member of the previous ODA, Sergeant 1st Class Mihail Golin had been killed and four others wounded in a firefight. Captain J’s team had six months to extend the ‘government’s reach’ by clearing more territory of ISKP fighters and building checkpoints for the ANSF to man as they progressed. He had never been to Afghanistan before.  Yet, in some ways, his mission was less fraught than it might seem at first sight. ISKP has been roundly rejected by Afghans, so the ODA was joining a popular fight. In Achin, the US military presence appeared even to be tolerated by local Taleban, for one good reason, as Captain J explained, “We think people associate us with the absence of ISIS-K.” Furthermore, almost all residents had long since fled Mamand when Captain J arrived in early 2018, so the risk of incurring civilian casualties in their area of operations – another cause of hostility towards US forces – was almost nil. Tolerance, however, was no guarantee of the soldiers’ safety. As he told me another time, Captain J aimed never to travel by road from COP Blackfish—through Achin, Shinwar and Bati Kot Districts—to the nearest major US base at Jalalabad airfield: an ambush, he believed, would be almost inevitable. 

In terms of its specific mission, continuing to push ISKP back, Captain J’s ODA was wholly successful. But he liked to look at their mission in far broader terms. “It’s not one or two fighters… hiding up in the mountains, it’s the organisation and ideology as a whole,” he told me. “I kind of took it seriously that 12 of us were asked to hold the line between ISIS and the greater population of Afghanistan.” 

Going into the Takhto Valley and discussions about the ANSF

Operational Detachment Alpha members during a mission into the Takhto Valley, to the east of Mamand Valley, Achin, on July 26, 2018. Photo: Author

For Achin and Mamand Valley, the success of the anti-ISKP mission will partly depend – along with seeing functioning governance established – on building up the Afghan National Army Special Forces [ANASF], who have been close allies of the US special forces mission. Mentoring the Afghan special forces has been central to US’ Freedom’s Sentinel counter-terrorism mission in Afghanistan, as a whole. Not everyone in the team is convinced of the efficacy of this, however.

The ODA’s Master Sergeant, ‘D’, a four-tour Afghanistan veteran who commands respect beyond his rank, does not hide his frustration when the ‘subtleties’ of the mission appear to him to come before killing. During a mission into the Takhto Valley, east of Mamand, in July 2018, Master Sergeant D voiced his suspicions to the author that the Afghan mine clearance team were, as he put it “slow-rolling” their sweep because they did not want to go into the valley. “It was different back in the day, before the whole ‘Afghan-face’ thing,” he said, referring to the strategy of having the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) ostensibly leading missions. “Now, it’s a constant struggle just to push the Afghans forward.” Captain J was more sanguine. He also thinks there are deep-rooted problems within the ANSF that lead to a lack of motivation in places like Mamand. “Some of the guys [understand] that it [is] their country and they [need] to fight, other guys [don’t] seem to care.” 

The reality may be very different. One de-miner attached to the team, who wore a “FUCK ISIS” patch on his shoulder, told me how hard their job was. “In these narrow valleys and against IS as an enemy, I’m very cautious.” Just a couple of months previously, one of his National Mine Reduction Group (NMRG) team mates had found an IED during a foot patrol with the same ODA. “He was preparing to ‘bip’ it with C4 [an explosive], stepped back a few metres and stepped on another mine. He died instantly. It takes only one mistake to lose the lives of friends.” Moreover, for the de-miners and the Afghan special forces soldiers working alongside the ODA, fighting and de-mining is a daily reality, not a one-off, six-month deployment.

Later, on the mission into Takhto, after hiking six kilometres into the valley, the ODA stopped under a tree. Last time they had come this far they had taken fire and lost an Afghan commando. They rested with two Afghan special forces officers and the mine clearance team as Afghan special forces teams pushed forward, high up on the ridges either side of the valley. There had been the occasional round coming from a ‘hook’ in the valley ahead, so the men were alert, but with two Apache helicopters cruising overhead in slow circuits, I sensed that most of the team considered missions like this one boring, unless they were getting shot at.

Then, without warning, a shot rang out. For seconds, no one could work out where it had come from, but it sounded close. Everyone but an Afghan captain, W, jumped to their feet. He had a trickle of blood running from where a bullet fragment, part of a single round accidentally fired by a de-miner, had ricocheted off a rock and lodged in his temple. The wound was minor, but for Captain W, who had been wounded in combat twice before, it signified more. By the time the ODA’s medic was cleaning the wound back at Blackfish, Captain W had fallen into a gloom emblematic of the low morale that plagues the ANSF. “It’s been eight years. I’m tired,” he said. “I will try to go to Europe.”

Airstrikes

For Captain J, his greatest asset in his Mamand mission is AB, a US air force combat controller attached to the team. AB coordinates all US (the author saw no Afghan air assets and it seems unlikely they would be needed with so much America airpower available), as well as remotely-fired artillery and rockets. At 25, the power he wields with a radio and ATAK – a smartphone-like device used for mapping fighting positions – is in contrast to his surfer image. He typifies the American special forces ‘off-the-leash’ reputation. Unkempt brown hair escaped from the sides of his baseball cap, blending into a beard cultivated with deliberate neglect. He wore cheap knock-off Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and, on-base, ‘combat Crocs’, plastic sandals.

Combat Controllers like AB, and ‘Joint Terminal Air Controllers’ (JTAC) as their army equivalents are known, are responsible for the targeting and requesting of almost every airstrike that the US military conducts in combat. In 2018, in Afghanistan, the US dropped more munitions (7,362 according to US Air Force Central Command) than in any other year since the war began. The report, published on February 8 2019, states that the strikes were “[i]n support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for ISIS-K, al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations…” and that “The missions assisted Afghan National Defense and Security Forces operations in applying military pressure in coordination with the international community’s effort to set conditions for a political solution in Afghanistan.”

However, a day spent at Blackfish shows why such figures might be misleading. AB’s JTAC counterpart, Sergeant 1st Class ‘D’, said he had called in more than 100 airstrikes just four months into his deployment, including several during my second embed with the team. None, however, targeted fighters. Instead, the two used their seemingly limitless firepower to keep ISKP fighters off high ground from where they might mount an attack, for “softening up an area before going out there,” as he put it, and even to allow new pilots target-practice in a combat zone. 

Even for strikes against non-human targets, however, a request had to make its way through several links in the chain of command for approval. More than once during my time with the ODA, team members expressed frustration at the reluctance of their superiors to hit what they believed were legitimate targets. One Green Beret had spent time in the NATO Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan Joint Operations Centre, where ground and air missions are overseen at Bagram Airfield, and, without elaborating, said he could understand why airstrikes took so long to approve. Since he was now “back on a team,” though, he could not hide his frustration with delays and denials. “Now,” he said, “I’m like, ‘come on.’”

One evening, the team’s attached mortar platoon fired over 200 rounds into a fold of the valley from where friendly forces had once been shot at, for ‘terrain denial’. On other occasions 500lb bombs were dropped on what I was told were ISKP ‘defensive fighting positions’. Captain J explained it as defence by offence. “We are not,” he said, “directly dropping bombs on bad guys, [but it’s] an effective tool for increasing force protection at a remote site [like COP Blackfish].” After a suspected ISKP fighting position overlooking Blackfish was destroyed in an F16 strike in April 2018, the team’s communications expert picked up radio chatter from near the site: “They’ve destroyed everything, even my clothes.” 

Airstrikes do not always go to plan. The first three days of my visit to Blackfish in April 2018 were spent mostly indoors, sheltering from rain, with some killing time playing X-Box. AB, who was planning an escape from the military into venture capitalism, studied a book by Warren Buffet. Everyone took their turn manoeuvring ammunition cans beneath leaks in the roof, emptying them as they filled. They shunned the formalities of military hierarchy, calling one another by nicknames rather than by rank.

The low, heavy clouds had mostly cleared by late afternoon on my third day. The air was electric blue, and unseasonably frigid. In the ODA’s operation’s room, the team’s communications expert picked up a radio conversation and triangulated the source to a mountain the team had dubbed ‘Pandora’, about two miles away. Pilots in Apaches soon spotted footprints in the snow, then three figures lying prone beneath the canopy. 

On the roof of Blackfish, AB, the Combat Controller, spoke with the pilots via radio. “I don’t think they’re sun-baking,” he said, scanning the ridge through a spotting scope. In the operations room, Captain J began negotiations with his superiors via radio for authority to strike. The helicopter pilots needed to refuel and turned back for Jalalabad Airfield. AB turned to Captain J, who had climbed the stairs to the roof. “We’ve got a B1, 45 minutes out,” he said, referring to a supersonic, heavy-bombing aircraft. As the colour faded from the landscape, a thick, fuzzy cloud began floating down the mountains toward where the three figures lay. Within 15 minutes it had enveloped the ridge. AB, now alone on the roof, his face illuminated by the screen of his ATAK, radioed to call the B1 crew off. The Apaches returned, but were blind above the cloud. To the night falling around him, and me, AB thought out loud: “All the might of the US military; brought down by a cloud.”

Relations with local powerbrokers

Credit: Roger Helms for AAN.

Equally vital to the ODA’s mission were its relationships with local power-brokers. The secretary of the Achin District Council, Mohammad Ayaz, explained how fraught these can be. “The problems occur,” he told this author, “when [Afghan] Local Police commanders take control of villages to which they don’t belong.” One such commander, Belal Pacha, originally from Kunar, defected from the Taleban to the government in 2015 but, the author was told, retains strong connections with Taleban in the area. His reputation for extortion and murder provoked hundreds of men to protest against his allegedabuses in September 2018, in Momand Dara district. A suicide bomber infiltrated the protesters, killing 70 and wounding as many as 200. Pacha’s reputation was well-known to the ODA, but they relied on his cooperation to secure a nearby area. This pattern, of the US military relying on abusive figures for capturing or holding territory, is a familiar one; from 2001 onwards, it has been a symptom of the short US deployment cycle, where expediency is prioritised over long-term consequences. Captain J told me, “We knew [Pacha] was a bad dude, so we always kept our distance, but he had a lot of contacts in the area and we needed his influence.”

Belal Pacha and two of his brothers were arrested, tried in court in Jalalabad and sentenced to six years in prison soon after the demonstration, but it remains to be seen whether the problems surrounding rogue ALP units and local militias, will be dealt with by the time the Americans hand over to local forces. 

Belal Pacha was the sort of person who helped ferment the discord that enabled ISKP to roll into Achin in the first place, in 2015. That he and others like him have been recent US special forces allies does not bode well. Most people from Achin I spoke to believe that once the Americans leave the Mamand Valley, unless the government has the support of the local population – and that means genuine and widespread support, not just the support of a few strongmen –  it will not be able to hold the area against the Taleban or ISKP for long.

Looking ahead

By July 2018, General Nicholson had wound back his early optimism but vowed to continue the mission until it was complete. “ISIS has proven to have a degree of resilience in southern Nangrahar,” he told me. “They’re tough fighters and they’ll be steadily reduced and we’re going to continue the fight until it’s complete.” 

In Achin the following week, residents were slowly trickling back into the Mamand and Takhto Valleys. “The highlight mission at the end… was seeing [Takhto] one last time,” Captain J told me via email from Blackfish shortly before he finished his deployment in September. “About 40 to 50 civilians were roaming around [in an area they had only recently cleared], collecting wheat up and going through abandoned houses. It is nice to see that after [six] months of work, a small valley like that could be given back to the Afghan population.” 

At the start of their mission, aside from the fighters still lurking among the homes, Mamand Valley appeared lifeless. By its end, from Blackfish at night, five faint lights could be seen twinkling against the dark.

Outside Captain J’s area of operations, however, the fight against ISKP is less convincing. After pushing fighters back in Achin, US special forces teams did the same in neighbouring Kot District. With ISKP on the run, US Army Green Berets handed their base there over to the Afghan National Army and pursued the fighters further west into Deh Bala, where the militants had established a new de-facto capital, five kilometres southwest of the district centre, in Gargari. The Green Berets built another base, Camp Blackbeard (named after a coffee company run by special forces veterans), on a flat, dusty hilltop near the district centre in June 2018. From there, according to a spokesperson for the US military in Afghanistan, US and Afghan special forces killed 167 ISKP fighters and destroyed caves and weapons caches in a five-day-operation to retake Gargari in June 2018. Surviving ISKP fighters then re-grouped in the caves of Tora Bora, in Pachieragam District, where Osama bin Laden once hid out. There, they remain.

As of January 2019, according to the latest quarterly report from the US Special Inspector General for SIGAR Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), published on 30 January 2019, Achin is now ‘under government influence’. (2) Here, it remains ISKP, not the Taleban, which is still the second most important player (after the government). Interviewees for a forthcoming AAN dispatch on Achin (part of a series on service deliveries in insurgency-influenced areas – the introduction can be read here), also confirmed that ISKP is still not yet gone from the district. It continues to operate in mountainous areas of the Spinghhar range, including at least some parts of the Mamand, Pekha and Bandar valleys. Interviewees told AAN ISKP is still running its own prison and court systems in parts of the Mamand valley

We asked Resolute Support for an update on where they thought the fight with ISKP now was. In a statement, they said, “In terms of Mohmand, Takhto and Baghdara Valley, we’re not providing detailed operational updates to the media.” The statement said that Resolute Support is continuously build[ing] understanding” of the threat posed by ISKP embodied and “move to and operate from locations where we can achieve effects to disrupt and destroy their capabilities… using targeted operations and enabling capable local security partners.” 

ISKP has proved a difficult enemy to dislodge, mainly for reasons of geography, as Borhan Osman, now the International Crisis Group’s head researcher for Afghanistan, said to this author, “With a vast recruitment pool on both sides of the border, it’s hard to defeat [them] militarily without addressing the reasons for the emergence of ISKP in the first place… You can’t just kill them to death.”

ISKP’s territorial control in eastern Afghanistan, has shrunk markedly since the Afghan/US campaign against it began in 2017. Yet, the group’s ability to hit its enemies hard has not abated. The vast majority of those enemies are now Afghan civilians and the toll ISKP has wreaked on them has been devastating. When anti-ISKP operations began in April 2017, the militants began attacking ‘soft’ targets; schools and health clinics in Nangrahar, and Afghan Shia Muslims, mainly ethnic Hazaras, in Kabul and elsewhere (see some of AAN reporting here, here and here). In less than two years, ISKP has claimed responsibility for more than 50 separate bombings or complex attacks that have claimed nearly 900, mainly civilian, lives.

***

Wolfgang Bauer, November 2017 and February 2018

Wolfgang Bauer, a German journalist with the Hamburg weekly, Die Zeit, provides another perspective on the US and Afghan special forces’ fight against ISKP in Achin district. He was embedded with a 14-strong Afghan National Border Police (ANBP) unit posted on a hill overlooking the village of Abdulkhel. All the policemen were from outside Nangrahar. Bauer also had a view of the US special forces’ base Andrew Quilty visited, which is located on a mountain ridge. Bauer’s original German text can be read here. What follows is a summary made by AAN senior analyst, Thomas Ruttig. 

Abdulkhel village, which was under Taleban control between 2012 and 2015, then ISKP after they pushed the Taleban out. Pro-government forces (unspecified in original text) took back half of the village between 2015 and February 2018. Abdulkhel is divided by a river that is dry for part of the year and today, Abdulkhel’s river divides the government and the ISKP-controlled sectors of the village. Since pro-government forces took half of Abdulkhel, ISKP fighters have twice overran the government post, each time killing almost all the policemen present, 22 in all. Their severed heads were displayed for weeks dangling from a mobile phone antenna on a neighbouring hill.

Yet it was Taleban brutalities, a local malek (village chief) told Bauer, had paved the way for the ISKP’s 2015 takeover. Quickly-rotating Taleban commanders had villagers killed who worked for the government, kidnapped businessmen and killed those who did not pay ransom. They killed mullahs who criticised their behaviour. As a result, the villagers were initially happy when the ISKP fighters arrived. But then, they discovered, ISKP did not “respect local traditions.” They banned women from shopping in the bazaar, told men to grow their hair long and suppressed poppy growing. Both Taleban and ISKP exploited family feuds to get local support.

The Taleban, when in control, had also initially stopped the construction of a madrasa that had been privately initiated by a local religious scholar and financed with World Bank money through the government (scheme not specified in original text). The provincial head of education department, however, sent a delegation to meet Taleban leaders in Pakistan who finally agreed to it. The madrasa began teaching, not only religious, but also ‘modern’ subjects. When ISKP took over, it closed the madrasa again. As the madrasa is on the government-controlled side of the river, it had re-opened, and even children from the ISKP side attend. However, the madrasa’s head teacher told Bauer, they have adapted IS ways of live and thinking, and speak even against the mullahs on the government side.

The Afghan Local Police unit Bauer visited was tasked with intercepting ISKP fighters driven out of the nearby Mamand valley. It was a 70-strong unit and lead by the notorious commander, Belal Pacha. It cooperated with, and was supported by the newly-deployed US special forces. Belal, Bauer mentions, had been part of a ‘Taleban splinter group’ linked with the Pakistani Taleban umbrella, the TTP (which also includes Afghans), until 2015 when he changed sides and was now paid by the Americans. 

The US forces, Bauer wrote, “monitor phone traffic in the day and hunt the ISKP at night.” He also described their plentiful air support. On a daily basis, B-52s, other jets and helicopters circled over the village. He described how one afternoon, a B-52 fired on the houses on the other side of the river. “Children run around in panic between the mud houses. Then, dust starts to cover the village. Once more it fires higher into the hillside, where the pastures are where the children graze their village’s goats.”

“We do not consider them civilians,” the Afghan border police commander told Bauer about those families.

Bauer is told the story of two boys killed in a similar incident the day after he left, in November 2017. He contacted the US military, he said, but did not receive any reply by the time of publication.

Belal’s fighters, who had pushed out ISKP from one half of the village, were ‘taxing’ local traffic and businesses at their checkpost at the road leading into Abdulkhel, according to the ABP unit commander and a local firewood trader. Altogether, the trader said, there are six checkposts on the way to the next bigger bazaar where he was being forced to pay ‘tax’. Some of the checkpoints were controlled by the Afghan National Police (in the district centre) and others by other ALP commanders, among them some loyal to Nangrahar strongman and MP, Haji Zaher. Belal sometimes accused traders of working for ISKP and confiscated all their wood. He would then take it to the bazaar on a lorry he had also stolen. Belal, the trader said, “is the worst” and that, because of him, he now hated “the government and the IS.”

Belal was also playing the role of the local judge, Bauer observed, as there was no other judicial authority. He publicly took money from the parties. The local maleks and mullahs accused him of killing villagers without trial, of kidnapping businessmen and maintaining a private jail and of torture. They complained to the provincial police chief and asked for Belal’s arrest – by then, without result. They also accused provincial officials of being paid by Belal. Belal was finally arrested in October and, with two brothers, jailed.

Belal was also said to have shot people when he was high on drugs. He kept a disabled boy, whom Bauer thought was then 12 years old as a ‘dancing boy’ (ie an underage youth kept for sex). The ABP commander told Bauer, Belal was the “scourge of this valley, worse than the Taleban and IS put together.”

Bauer returned to Abdulkhel once more in February 2018, after a cold, but almost snowless winter. 60 people, he was told, had died from the cold, whooping cough and from ‘poverty’. People did not dare to go to the mountains where they used to collect firewood, anymore as these areas were controlled by ISKP. The local clinic had no medication anymore. And as the local opium factories had been closed, people were deprived of cash income. Hundreds, Bauer is told, had been living from the drug economy.

Bauer concluded, that the Americans have established the countrywide system of the [Afghan] Local Police. The US military believes that they cannot stop the IS and Taleban’s advance without men like Belal. In Abdulkhel they have created a monster, though, he said, and: For most people in the village, this monster is the government in Kabul, that put Belal in place.

Edited by Kate Clark

* Andrew Quilty is an Australian freelance photojournalist. He has been based in Kabul since 2013. His work in Afghanistan has garnered several accolades including the Polk Award for Photojournalism, a Pictures of the Year International Award and the Gold Walkley, the highest prize in Australian journalism. His website is: www.andrewquilty.com.

Material in this dispatch originally appeared in a New York Times article: Andrew Quilty “The Last Americans Fighting in Afghanistan”, 5 October 2018.

(1) After an initial Taleban attempt to regain territory in Mamand in July 2015 which called on local men to join in the fight, ISKP retook the territory and detained 80 men and executed 11, in brutal fashion. Residents fled and ISKP confiscated their lands and property, settling new fighters, arriving from Orakzai and Bajaur agencies, along with their families, there. In subsequent fighting, both Taleban and ISKP targeted civilians they believed were linked to the other party, as they sought to gain the upper hand; that included burning homes, public executions and forced exile. ISKP also closed schools and government-run clinics and banned opium cultivation. For detail on all this, how ISKP managed to establish a base in Nangrahar and the repercussions for local civilians, see:

Borhan Osman, “The Islamic State in ‘Khorasan’: How it began and where it stands now in Nangarhar”, AAN, 27 July 2016. 

David Mansfield, “The Devil is in the Details: Nangarhar’s continued decline into insurgency, violence and widespread drug production”, AREU, February 2016. 

See UNAMA’s “Afghanistan Annual Report 2015 Protection Of Civilians In Armed Conflict” for detail on civilian displacement and ISKP closures of schools and threats against health facilities and workers.

(2) SIGAR categorizes each area into five categories: under insurgent control, under insurgent influence, neutral/at risk, under government influence and under government control. The SIGAR map of control is based on NATO RS assessments, which consider such issues as who governs, who gets taxes, who controls infrastructure and who controls ‘messaging’ in a district (for further explanation, see page 5 of this report).

ABSTRACT
The European Union faces an increasingly challenging security environment, with a climate of international instability and a level of tension not seen since the end of the Cold War. Repeated chemical attacks by both State and non-state actors in the context of the Syrian conflict, the Novichok attack in Salisbury and the disruption of two ricine terror plots in Germany and in France in 2018 came all as stark reminders that the threat remains real and that Member States could be affected. In this context, the European Union (EU) continues to strengthen its capacities in the field of CBRN preparedness and response. The use of EU mechanisms and Member States' military assets is one of the possibilities for strengthening prevention capacities that must be explored more thoroughly.
Further information
EU preparedness against CBRN weapons
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

SEDE organized a public hearing on 'Russian influence in South-East Europe' on Monday 3r December, from 17.00 to 18.30, with external experts
Location : Altiero Spinelli Room 1G-2
Further information
Draft programme
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

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